Worst Super Bowl Half-time Show EVER
Completely off normal topics, did anyone happen to see the halftime show during the Super Bowl last night? Holy Jesus. That had to be the worst selection of half-time entertainment in the history of half-time entertainment. It’s even worse than the famous incident where Justin Timberlake ripped off Janet Jackson’s bra cup during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show. For those of you fortunate enough to have missed this year’s catastrophe, the entire performance was by a guy from Canada who calls himself The Weeknd, but whose real name is Abel Tesfaye. His weird trademark is performing wearing bandaids/bandages sometimes with fake blood on his face. It’s just weird. I’m an old Stones fan, so I get weird, but this guy is WEIRD.
His performance for the Super Bowl was this dark dystopian vision that began with hundreds of ghoulish ghost-like figures in the end zone stands with glowing eyes that revealed themselves as orchestra members. Unsettling, to say the least. When The Weeknd came out on stage, I didn’t recognize him because he WASN’T wearing bandages and I’d never seen him without them. At first, I thought it was strange that Jake from State Farm was doing the half-time show since, after all, he was wearing a red jacket, but then realized who it was. The setting and the stage was so dark and the sound was so terrible that I couldn’t even tell what the tunes were that he was singing. His second song was under that stands in a golden hall of distorted mirrors where he was carrying the camera himself doing a moving selfie, surrounded by a bunch of other guys also in red jackets but wearing bandages over their heads that resembled upside down jock straps.
Then came the worst part…The Weeknd came out onto the field, joined by about 500 more guys with jock straps on their heads all marching to the beat. It looked like a take off of the rallies that the Nazis held in 1930s in Germany. It was surreal, almost scary. Mercifully, the performance ended and we returned to funny commercials. I looked at Ms. Jefe and all I could say was, “That was weird.” Because it was.
We’re coming off one of the worst years in US history. Millions of Americans are unemployed. The economy (not the stock market) is in the ditch. Many businesses are closed, schools are closed, and everyone, except the very wealthy class, is struggling. We’ve had 27 million Americans infected with the virus and over 450,000 dead. The Super Bowl is the FIRST major event in almost a year that is supposed to be a celebration of football, funny commercials, heavy drinking, terrible food, and spectacular half-time shows. Some of the best performers on the planet have appeared in past years, from the Stones, to J Lo and Shakira, to U2, to Prince, to Bruno Mars, to Maroon 5, to Beyoncé, to Lady Gaga, to Madonna, to…you get the picture. What everyone needed this year was a spectacular, flashy, fun, and uplifting show. What they got was a modern version of Thriller with the zombies wearing jock straps on their heads.
Now I ask you: What genius at the NFL said, ” I have a great idea! Let’s host some red jacket wearing guy unfamiliar to 90% of the audience singing songs you never heard of or couldn’t understand, joined on field with 500 male dancers also wearing red jackets with the addition of jock straps on their heads. Add ghosts, lots of shadows, and a golden hall of distorted mirrors and that’s a winning combination, right? Happy days are here again, right?”
That guy needs to be reassigned to managing the locker room for some XFL team.
El Jefe, would say that we “missed” all of that. But from your description we didn’t miss a thing. Football isn’t our game. Let’s say Tampa Bay and who? Although we did place bets on the game after all the BS hoopla of the pundits. We did quite nicely. What sort of moron bets against a tandem of Brady and the Gronk. Apparently some NV sports books, as we did quite nicely betting against the conventional ‘wisdom’.
1Have to say, I just check out the commercials every year. I found the ‘2020 gave us lemons’ commercial highly entertaining.
2A post on Twitter commented that after an AMAZING performance by 1 or more talented women, the next year’s Super Bowl halftime headliner is always a boring man. And so it was this yr. Weeknd has a couple of good songs but he’s beyond boring as a performer. Glad I sat out this yrs ‘show’.
3You make it sound almost as bad as the football game, if that’s what it was
4Well, they could have gotten a Nickleback cover band…
5I didn’t see any of it, but I am having a good laugh at your description.
6I’ve heard The Weeknd was not paid for his “show” but spent his own $7 million to put it on. Glad I missed it. Sounded like a real shit show. Glad I missed the game, too, and seein cheatin tom brady and his “I’m the greatest” postgame grin. I’m not a fan if you couldn’t tell.
7The show was terrible.
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.
Look It Up.
8I watched the game but not the half time show because I had never heard of the Weekend. When I saw the still pictures this morning, my first thought was “Why are they wearing jockstraps on their heads?”
9I felt vindicated that someone who writes for a professional political organization thought the same thing
Glad I did the dishes during half time, at least I accomplished something useful.
Gee, I’m glad I missed that. And the commercials? I must have missed the good/funny one, because the ones I saw were abysmal. Not a bad game, though, as Superb Owls go, if you didn’t really care about the outcome.
10I haven’t watched a pro football game since Colin Kaepernick got blackballed. I haven’t missed anything. It was a good decision.
11I was doing dishes for part of it, but the part I did see was just awful because the sound was awful. The instrumentation drowned out the vocals. I did notice the weird headware of those dancing. I think it’s time for the NFL to pay people to do this. Then maybe you won’t get B listers.
Im not a big country fan, so Eric Church was somewhat of a mystery for me as a singer for the national anthem. However, I had heard his name before. The female performer (I can’t remember her name because I had never seen her before in my life) was good, but again I had not heard of her.
You have upwards of 200 million people watching in the U.S. alone. This isn’t a time for a tribute to Boxcar Willie.
12Maybe our donnie got something right?
13Canada wasn’t sending us their best?
After two minutes, spouse and I went back to Midsommer Murders. I would ask my grown kids what that performance was all about, but they avoid football altogether.
Barnaby did solve the murder!
Before anyone gives Tom Brady a trophy, don’t forget that the Chiefs have the right to exhaust every legal avenue to challenge the result. It would be irresponsible to congratulate the Buccaneers so early. Many many fans are upset. Wouldn’t want them to lose trust. – Abraham Gutman
14Once the game started going South for the Chiefs, I walked away from it. So glad I missed that awful excuse for a halftime show.
15I’m the oddball who watches the Super Bowl to, uh, actually see a football game. I don’t care about commercials or half-time shows. In fact, the only commercial I really hear any chatter about is the Springsteen one which appeared to champion Christian nationalism. (You’d think *someone* in the PR/AD dept. would recognize that some Christians would view putting a cross on a flag as nothing less than blasphemy.)
16If you had a Like button on this post, I would click it.
17Haven’t watched a Stupor Bowl in at least thirty-five years. Like all that ‘pro sports’ crap, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all, boring as hell.
Have no idea who played, and never heard of those ‘performers’.
On the other hand, I will be streaming the Amerca’s Cup Regatta events until my eyeballs fall out.
Those AC75 class 75foot hydrofoil monohulls they’re using are muthafocking awesome. Although I think the big catamarans used in recent Amerca’s Cups are even better [used to do the same basic moves on my catamarans that were only 16-20′ long, similar thrills though].
Fly a hull!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC75
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC50
18Here’s some awesome :
19https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/AC72_New_Zealand_Aotearoa_San_Francisco_01.jpg
if you can’t fish from the boat, what’s even the point?
20With all the deth from the virus still ongoing, this was the slast thing I wanted to see!
21