Pepsi Super Bowl XLVIII Halftime Show- Heavy.com
Unless you were a Seahawks fan, the Super Bowl was one of, if not the most, boring Super Bowls in all of football history to watch because of the blow out. I was pleading for halftime to start so I could get my dosage of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and oh yeah…some guy named Bruno Mars that girls seem to really dig.
Bruno Mars did a great job. I’m not a huge fan of his music but I understood exactly what the producers of the halftime show were thinking when they booked him. The audience he attracts is mostly female. The audience the Super Bowl attracts is mostly male. Put one and one together and you have complementary acts on the same stage- something everyone can enjoy.
Then, the Red Hot Chili Peppers came on stage for one song and brought the energy to an all time performance high. Awesome right? No. Here is the real bummer. During their throw-back, kick-ass performance, the bass, guitar and drums were not plugged in. Yet, oddly enough, the Chili Peppers kept performing with their usual red hot flame. At the time of the performance nobody really noticed. However, these past couple days have seen a plethora of pictures from the halftime performance circulating around the internet showing the bands equipment not plugged in. Finally, Flea, the bassist of the RHCP, decided to talk about the issue in Rolling Stone magazine today. He admitted the only live sounds were the vocals and admitted the NFL said they couldn’t afford a botched halftime show.
You saw that right. The National Football League told the Red Hot Chili Peppers to play a recorded set. Let that sink in.
This isn’t the first time the NFL has had a Super Bowl halftime preconceived disaster. I was just starting to forget about the 2004 Super Bowl halftime “Bra-ha-ha” performance with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. (Skip to 4:oo)
In the end, the Super Bowl halftime show seems like great exposure for an artist. Super Bowl Sunday is an unofficial holiday in America. Television ratings are through the roof. In reality the halftime show is actually a super PR disaster for artists when the NFL makes the performers do something they normally wouldn’t do.
Overcast! 