The most watched half-time in the world

I am of course talking about the small known American Football phenomenon that occurs at the start of February each year; the Superbowl. Since the superbowl began in 1967 we have seen a performance occur in the 30 minute half time of the game. During this period the pitch is cleared a stage is erected and a band performs a 15 minute set which is shown live to approximately 90 million people. Originally the show would allow a marching band to perform to entertain the crowd. However as we saw an increase in audience ratings, along with the cost to advertise we saw an improvement in the level of performers that were able to grace the centrefield.

For the first decade the performers were usually a university marching band who would sometimes be joined by a famous artist, Ella Fitzgerald performed in 1972 in a salute to Louis Armstrong, it would however be nearly 20 years until we would have another famous artist perform, as we then saw the era of a performance show, they would tend to be themed and offered a glimpse into the 1980s world of sports entertainment. The 90’s couldn’t roll around fast enough however with the movement into a new decade we also saw the start of artists performing at half time. We began with ‘New Kids on the Block’ and Disney characters, performing a remembrance of the first 25 years of the superbowl. Then in 1992 ‘Gloria Estefan’ sang as some gold medalists from the winter Olympics skated around mini ice-rinks, it was indeed quite an unbelievable show….that is I can’t believe someone thought that it would be a good idea!



The first global superstar to perform during the 30 minute gap was Michael Jackson, his performance in 1993 transformed the Superbowl, it was the first year in the sports history that viewing figures increased during the half time slot. He performed a medley of songs which would forever transform the allotted half time show.



The rest of the 90’s saw Diana Ross, the Blues Brothers, TLC, Aretha Franklin and lastly Chaka Khan, Gloria Estefan (who along with Justin Timberlake are only artists to have performed twice) and Stevie Wonder. We started to move into a younger pop audience at the turn of the millennium with Christina Aguilera, Enrique Inglesias, ‘N Sync, Britney Spears, May J Blige and Nelly. After U2 performed in 2002 a tribute to those who died on 11th September we returned back to pop music, with Shania Twain, No Doubt and Sting performing in 2003. It would however be in 2004 that the performance would cause the most controversy, at the end of Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson’s show. The world was introduced to the term ‘wardrobe malfunction’ something used to describe seeing Miss Jacksons tit.



After the controversy surrounding the wardrobe malfunction the NFL started to move into safer territory, they elected to move into the geriatric rockers territory. The next two artists were British, a first in superbowl half time entertainment. We saw Paul McCartney perform some classic songs from his illustrious career, performing Beatles, Wings and solo material. The NFL was clearly pleased with the lack of controversy so booked The Rolling Stones to perform, with The Stones however came the largest stage ever to be mounted in Superbowl history, as you can see from below the 28 pieces that were needed to be assembled were completed and they performed a good show.





After the Rolling Stones however was one of my favorite performances, Prince returned with his own symbol and performed a superb medley of songs including a cover of the Foo Fighters ‘Best Of You’ unfortunately as much as I would have loved to put a clip below of the performance however Prince worked tirelessly to have them all removed, so unfortunately you will have to take my word for it. The NFL have clearly been feeling the pressure to keep these aged performers making spectacular half time shows, they clearly want to show the performances of artists who may not be there in a few years time, we saw Tom Petty perform a perfectly inoffensive show. It was then the Boss who took the show to another level, Springsteen and the E-Street band put everything into that performance and really made it something that everyone would be talking about after the game. I could only find videos from the audience which didn’t quite do as much credit as it deserves.

This year we saw The Who perform, I was very disappointed by both Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey’s voices as they seemed past it; however the light show was something that took away from their sub par performance. I can’t help but hope that in the forthcoming year they start to return to younger artists as we are definitely starting to run out of the geriatric generation!