Bieber and Gomez backstage at Phish with Cooper Sands

Hollywood Reporter music editor Shirley Halperin is also a longstanding friend and fan of Phish. As she once told executive editor Dean Budnick, "When they were making the Hoist record they wanted to put the song “Jerusalem City of Gold” on in it at the end but they didn’t know the words. So while I was still living with my parents, I got a random call at midnight on a weeknight from Mike Gordon. They were literally in the studio recording Hoist and he asked me if I could transliterate the song and speak it out for him so that they’d sing it properly." As a result, it makes perfect sense that she’d have the scoop on the appearance by Justin Bieber and girlfriend Selena Gomez at last night’s Phish show, which took place at Long Beach Arena.

Halperin writes, in part, “Bieber was brought to the concert by his guitarist and musical director Dan Kanter, who happens to be a massive and very devoted Phish fan. Kanter had apparently been asking Bieber to check out the band’s lyric-light brand of psychedelia and rockabilly for almost as long as the two had known each other…Bieber was first introduced to Phish bassist Mike Gordon, then guitarist, frontman and Kanter’s personal idol Trey Anastasio. According to photographer Jeff Kravitz, they found common ground in talking music, of course, and also in singing the praises of Phish’s revered lighting director Chris Kuroda, who will be designing Bieber’s next tour….For the second set, Bieber and Gomez really got into the (Weekapaug) groove, hurling glowsticks from a virtual arsenal they had stashed at the soundboard riser.”

Phish is off tonight before a three night stand at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. No word on whether a Bieber/Gomez road trip is expected.