It's not much of a secret that I prefer music that can be performed by humans. In the early days, we were entertained by marching bands from all over the country, Up With People and all-star shows featuring a who's who of entertainment. Around the time we went from afternoon games to night games, the NFL realized just what a money-maker they had and started ratcheting up the stakes. Having said that, I tried watching the halftime yesterday and all I can say about the weekend is, the weather was really cold.
HOWEVER, the magic of YouTube has left us with NUMEROUS memories of half-time done RIGHT. For example, let's start with 1997's Superbowl XXXI show featuring THe Blues Brothers, ZZ Top and James Brown
The Super Bowl XXXV half-time show in 2001 gave the stage to Aerosmith and some of the pop-stars of the moment. I prefer to concentrate on Aerosmith, and skip the noise ;)
Say what you will about their music appearing on iPhones out of nowhere, U2's show the next year contained ZERO boy-band moments, and was pretty damn good.
After a couple years of pop fluff, Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005 came back to the good stuff and brought us Paul McCartney, followed the next year by The Rolling Stones
Super Bowl XLI had (what some argue) was the most epic half-time performance even, when Prince took the stage. You gotta admit, singing Purple Rain in a pouring rainstorm is epic, and while his music may not be Classic Rock, he comes from the same school and gives it all when he takes the stage. Plus, he's a Twin-Cities guy, so... He's practically a local. Unfortunately the only complete version I can find of this one is on Facebook.
The next two half-time shows made me think they were starting to get it. I mean, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, followed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band? 2008 & 2009 were like heaven!
Little did we know, our run of good luck would soon come to an end, but it did so in EPIC fashion. Super Bowl XLIV brought us a performance from The Who!
Since then, it's been all pop music. Now, in 2014 the NFL tried to placate us during their Bruno Mars show by including The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. The members of RHCP were opposed to the idea of lip-syncing and playing along to a track, They didn't feel like being 'team players' so if you take a moment and watch their segment, you'll notice they didn't even TRY to make it seem like they were doing it live. See any wireless packs on the guitars?
Will we get another decent half-time show? Well, considering AC/DC's "Power Up" album is out there, and there are several other bands who made music during the pandemic lockdown, we can hope, can't we?