The Super Bowl Needs a Classic Rock Halftime Show
The Super Bowl halftime show entertainment will be performed by The Weeknd. (Not a misspelling, by the way). Last year Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. The year before that we were not sure what we saw when Maroon 5 took the Pepsi stage.
Going back a decade and a half or so, Super Bowl halftime shows were performed by some of the biggest artists in the world, including Paul McCartney, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Rolling Stones, U2, and Bruce Springsteen.
Those were the days. What we've been seeing the last few years has been displays of glitter, pop music, and wardrobe malfunctions with very little substance as far as musical entertainment.
When classic rock took to the halftime show it wasn't offensive and gave us something to talk about on Monday morning. Although The Weeknd has a global fanbase and was named one of Time magazine's most influential people in 2020, it would be nice to see the superstars of classic rock perform to tack us back to a time when things weren't so ...you know...2020.
But we have come a long way since the early NFL championship games. For the first decade, it was mostly marching bands performing at the half. Then, during Super Bowl 10, Up With People performed. But it wasn't until 1993 when Michael Jackson raised the bar and viewership went through the roof. The NFL decided it was time to put more emphasis on the halftime shows.
To help bring back the great Super Bowl halftime performances here's a list of the classic rockers:
- 1997: The Blues Brothers and ZZ Top
- 2000: Phil Collins
- 2001: Aerosmith
- 2002: U2
- 2003: Sting and Shania Twain
- 2004: Kid Rock and Justin Timberlake
- 2005: Paul McCartney
- 2006: The Rolling Stones
- 2007: Prince
- 2008: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
- 2009: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
- 2010: The Who
That was more than a great decade for halftime entertainment. It would be nice to bring back that caliber of talent.
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