Shakira opens the half- time show. Some call it the ass-time show. Blogfinger.net. The APP applauded the “back-field in motion.”
J. Lo (Jennifer Lopez) opens her portion of half-time. Blogfinger.net
Oh yes, there was a football game. Blogfinger photo.
All photos taken off the TV by Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net
We all know that Super Bowl Sunday is mostly about partying, eating, drinking, laughing at commercials, and making noise. Next comes the half-time show, and finally there is “the game.” I try to get interested in football on this day each year, but it never works for me. I walked in and out of the room, and shut off the set a few minutes before the end.
I don’t know what to say about the half time show. It’s as if you are in a foreign country when all of a sudden singers and dancers, in wild clothes, speaking in tongues, engage in complex but meaningless choreography, and the appearance of the young performers was as interesting as the music. But if you know contemporary music, the song list was a tour de force,containing nearly 40 sets of music; so it was a kaleidoscope, a panorama, of pop and Spanish songs. Some of it I could recognize, but not much.
Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said, “This was less about music than it was eye-catching spectacle, a sea of constant motion filling TV screens across America with an air of smiling, shimmying exuberance. It was Latin pop night at the Super Bowl, with two ready-to-conquer dancer-singers-entertainers as hosts.”
I’m not sure exactly why I liked it, but overall, it was fun–a combination of lively ingredients. The exquisitely beautiful and flexible Shakira, inexhaustibly eye catching, has a provocative sense of humor. And J.Lo can hang from a high pole at the age of 50.
And yes, there was a pretty good football game, if you can sit still for 3 hours while two teams repetitively knock each other around, with only one the victor, like in the Roman coliseum with the gladiators. My favorite language during the show was Spanish.
So, the next day I was in Home Depot in Ft. Myers. In walks a middle aged couple wearing brightly colored Kansas City Chiefs shirts. (In case your were locked in a closet for Sunday, this was the winning team.) The two strutted into the store where a manager was standing at the entrance.
Manager: Congratulations.
Man: Thank you.
Manager: Great game.
Me standing there spoke to the man: Do people actually congratulate you over the game?
Man: They sure do, many times today.
Me: Do you say “thank you?”
Man: Of course, I’m from Kansas City.
Me: But you didn’t play in the game.
Man: True, but I felt like I did.
Me: How did you like Shakira?
Man: He didn’t reply, heading towards plumbing.
Here’s one song I did recognize: Cold Play’s “Viva La Vida”