Bruce Springsteen can save the day! Or at least the Super
Bowl day. Although they have tried to kill rumors last month regarding the
potential rock star’s appearance at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida,
the NFL and NBC announced on Sunday that The Boss and the E Street Band will
headline the Super Bowl XLIII halftime show due to be held on February 1, 2009.
If we take into account the most recent musical moments at the
championship game, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will most likely
perform four songs, their best-known four hits, that is.
The latest Super Bowl brought us Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers, who remained faithful to their most famous songs, “American
Girl,” “I Won’t Back Down,” “Free Fallin’” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” so it
wouldn’t come as a surprise if Bruce Springsteen stuck to his fans’ all-time
favorite tracks.
Early Super Bowls featured halftime shows that included
marching bands from local colleges or high schools. However, as the popularity
of the game increased, more renowned singers and musicians were invited to
perform during the pre-game ceremonies or the halftime show. For instance,
2007’s Super Bowl XLI included Cirque du Soleil, Romero Britto and Louie Vega
in the pre-game ceremonies, while Billy Joel performed the national anthem of
the United States.
In addition to these artists, the show featured a halftime performance by
Prince, who played several of his own hits along with some covers, “Let’s Go
Crazy,” “Purple Rain,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Proud Mary” and “Best of
You.”
In 2002, U2 delivered a brilliant performance, as, during
their second song, “Where the Streets Have No Name,” the rock band played under
a large projection screen which scrolled through all the names of the victims
of 9/11.
Nevertheless, a good moment is followed by a bad one and so
forth. Thus, the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004 stirred
controversy when pop singer Justin Timberlake took off a piece of Janet
Jackson’s top and exposed her right breast. Everybody could see a star-shaped
ring around the performer’s nipple, but both Timberlake and Jackson claimed
that the incident was a mere accident and amusingly called it a “wardrobe
malfunction.” The game was airing live on CBS and, in spite of the fact that the
producer cut to a commercial break, video captures of the episode were
immediately available on the Internet.
It seems that the NFL has taken strong security measures and
only invited men to perform during the Super Bowl halftime show. Organizers
were somehow forced to do it, as the 2008 Super Bowl was watched by over 148
million viewers in the U.S.,
and, therefore, another similar “accident” would not have been welcome.
Bruce Springsteen has just ended a sold-out tour for his
latest studio release, “Magic,” which claimed the second spot on “Rolling
Stone’s” list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007 and was nominated for the Grammy
Award for Best Rock Album, although it failed to win, as the prize went to the
Foo Fighters’ “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.”
