Super Bowl Halftime Show Reviewed

This isn’t a sports blog, so I’ll stick to the halftime/production entertainment values of the game.  First things first, I still think that the crew that FOX has assembled to do pre/middle/post game NFL coverage is the worst in television.  But that’s most definitely a personal opinion…and I have nothing to really base that on…so I’ll let that go for now.  There’s also no reason to really go into the actual game footage from a camera standpoint, because they’ve pretty much gotten that down to a science.  That leaves, in the game production side of the things, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.  Surprisingly, these guys are both pretty good at what they do.  I still just want to understand why Buck wears so much lip gloss, or lipstick, or whatever it is.  I mean…am I the only one seeing this??

So, let’s move on to the halftime festivities.  The Black Eyed Peas, eventually joined by Slash, eventually joined by Usher.  I’m not much of an Usher fan…but he was certainly an excellent addition to the Black Eyed Peas.  Slash…well, I can take him or leave him, but you can’t deny that they guy can wail on the guitar.  That is, when you can hear it.  What a disappointment.  I can only assume that the same people mixing the audio for the game were left mixing the audio for the halftime show, and that is just 5 ticks past a bad idea.  Mixing music, especially modern hip-hop fusion (whatever you call the Peas’ music,) is incredibly difficult.  It’s not just making sure things can be heard, it actually takes skill to make sure that the various pieces of the composition come through.  Herein lies the issue with this halftime production.  Not only were the levels incredibly off – but I’m not even sure that the non-vocal tracks were being fed to the television audience!  I’m fairly certain that the only music we were hearing was bleeding through the vocalists’ microphones.  It was even more obvious when Slash pops up on stage…and we can’t really hear his guitar!  Slash without the guitar is just an old dude with bad hair and questionable piercings…

Now, I think the Black Eyed Peas are one of the best acts going right now.  They are great showmen (and woman), have great stage presence, and have some great tunes.  However, no matter how good you are, your vocals are going to suffer when you’re on that kind of stage.  You’re being rushed to sing a long medley of your tunes, your guests’ tunes, and usually part of another; you’re in front of a hundred thousand people live, and a hundred million around the world; and you’re doing it for possibly the first or second time on an unknown stage.  With all of that, it’s hard to blame a performer for putting out a less than stellar performance.  Usually, however, mediocre vocals can be made up for with excellent music behind you.  Here’s where we come to the problem…not only were all of the singers clearly off their game, (Peas were off, Usher was just bad,) but then Fox goes and doesn’t give the hundred million television viewers any instrumental audio!  If you’ve ever wanted to see a celebrated act go quickly from best to worst…just watch this sorry production.

It’s really a shame, too, as the visuals were just stunning.  The halftime show is almost always a feast for the eyes…and this one didn’t disappoint.  From Taboo’s LED covered outfit, to the very Tron-like dancers, and the use of the massive screens in Cowboy Stadium, this was certainly amazing to see.  To bad it would have been better with the TV muted…  Let this be a lesson to the networks and the NFL going forward:  We applaud inviting a band that means something to this century, but please, for the love of all that is Fergie, tell the mixing engineer that you have on payroll to slowly step away from the console and let the guys that know music sit down for a while.

If I had to rate this thing, I’d give it a 3.5/5 for visuals, and a 1/5 for audio.

~ by dbruhn on February 6, 2011.