Here’s what happened at Staples Center during ‘An Evening with Justin Bieber’

“I would say school is important -- but this is probably a little more important.”

That’s how Justin Bieber replied to a fan’s admission that she’d skipped class Friday afternoon to attend the first of three events the teen-pop star held at Staples Center to mark the release of his new album, “Purpose.”

NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines >>

Billed rather vaguely as “An Evening with Justin Bieber” (despite the first show’s 2:30 p.m. start time), Friday’s production wasn’t described in advance to any great extent. But that didn’t stop several thousand fans from turning up -- with or without an excuse from school -- to see what Bieber had in store. Here’s a rundown:

1. The 90-minute gig began with an introduction by Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, who said he’d forgotten how loud a Justin Bieber concert could be. And, indeed, the crowd’s shrieking hit an ear-shredding level as soon as Bieber appeared, riding a skateboard to a small stage set up at the center of the arena’s floor.

2. Once Bieber was onstage, Braun brought up another face familiar to hard-core Beliebers: the singer’s pastor, Judah Smith. The bespectacled fellow, it turned out, was to be Bieber’s chosen interlocutor for an ultra-deferential chat about the importance of maintaining a positive spirit and surrounding oneself with encouraging people (including, one presumes, Judah Smith).

3. Then Bieber, who wore a black hoodie over black skinny jeans, took questions from fans. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that one girl asked if Bieber would marry her (he said yes) or that another asked for guidance after a recent breakup (he demurred, admitting with a laugh, “I’m not really good at relationship counseling”).

Someone else wanted to know what got him back on his feet after a string of widely publicized tabloid troubles threatened to derail his career over the last couple of years. His relationship with God helped, he said. When another fan asked whom he’d like to collaborate with, he thought for a minute before saying Jay Z.

4. Did Bieber sing? Bieber sang. Accompanied by his longtime guitarist, Dan Kanter, he did strummy acoustic versions of several songs from “Purpose” -- including the EDM-ish “Sorry” and “What Do You Mean?” -- as well as a handful of oldies. For “One Less Lonely Girl,” he selected a fan from the audience and invited her to sit on a stool while he serenaded her.

5. Friday’s festivities closed with a bit of an anticlimax: a screening -- the first for an audience, Braun said -- of a short film featuring each song from “Purpose” set to a different dance piece. “Where Are U Now,” which took place inside a grocery store, was fun. And “Company” had some remarkable choreography (even if the location outside a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. left something to be desired).

But even this audience of Bieber devotees seemed to lose interest halfway through the film -- at least until the album’s title track, which found the singer striking a series of messianic poses in a parched desert landscape. That got everybody excited again.

Twitter: @mikaelwood

ALSO

Review: One Direction prepares to disappear with ‘Made in the A.M.’

A day in the teen-idol life of 5 Seconds of Summer: reflections between the shrieks

Troye Sivan on moving beyond YouTube to pop radio: ‘That’s what I want’