Just watched all the recent Super Bowl halftimes. I think there's a lesson in each of them.
Black Eyed Peas - the addition of Slash was simple and well placed. If Gaga's inviting a legend, a performance a la 'Sweet Child' would work well I think. On the other hand, the audio mixing was horrific and a lesson on what
not to do.
Madonna - she
by far has the best musical arrangement of the recent pack. The updated Egyptian sound in 'Vogue' is great, as is its transition into 'Music', the placement of the LMFAO songs and the addition of Open Your Heart / Express Yourself as a marching drum line. It flows really well.
Beyonce - The voiceover intro was epic and a great addition. I like that Beyonce didn't lip sync (?), and instead killed it vocally in some parts
because she left a lot of chorus singing and such to live backup singers. I think Gaga should leave it to backup singers to do the heavy lifting for her halftime like Beyonce did. The fire guitar solo was, well,
fire but the rest of the medley arrangement leaves a little to be desired. I think it's a little too stop-starty and really loses steam towards the end.
Bruno Mars - He showed off his talents really well (with his drum solo intro), in a way that Gaga would benefit from doing too. It was simple but effective, and the live band was really great. The addition of the Chilli Peppers was a little long-winded and boring I thought, but I'm not really a big fan of theirs anyway so that's probably why I didn't love it. The ending was cute and would certainly have pleased the NFL demographic. Oh, also the fact that he did an album track was pretty cool. It's better to focus on songs fitting and being appropriate for the stage, than worrying about only playing the hits. Ofc, the smashes should still be included. But in Gaga's case for example, there's no real reason to include
'LoveGame' over
'Diamond Heart' just because the former is better known.
Katy Perry - To be honest, I don't have a bunch of nice things to say about this one. It wasn't bad - it just seemed awfully plain. Nonetheless, Lenny Kravitz part worked really well without taking away from the headliner. I guess the fact that it generated the viral Shark meme is cool?
Coldplay - Daylight really killed this performance. It just doesn't feel epic at all. I really liked the dance-off though, and the fact that it was specially arranged for the show. Additions like that are really cool, and take the performances away from being just boring press-play live medleys, and more authentic and interesting. It's a little predictable if you just hear 'intro-verse-chorus' of the act's five biggest hits.
Crap, this is really long.
Anyway, TL;DR - the lessons are;
- Incorporate legends
into the show (a la Lenny '15, Slash '11), don't make their performances feel removed the half time.
- Ensure stellar audio mixing
- Create a killer arrangement, with new versions of things, musical additions and such (Madonna, Coldplay's dance-off). Don't just namecheck all the songs in their album versions.
- Show off talent! Play instruments and such.
- Incorporate album tracks if they work (cough
Diamond Heart cough)
- Leave the heavy lifting to the back-up singers and sing only where necessary (to put the cherry on top).
So yeah
