Music News

With the announcement on Monday that Bruce Springsteen will play the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa, the NFL has officially exhausted its options. Not that Bruce isn’t the perfect choice. He’ll bust out some of his crowd-pleasers like “Born To Run,” “Thunder Road” and “Glory Days” (the latter would require changing the sport of the faded high-school star in the song from baseball to football and changing the lyric to “He could throw that crossing pattern by you”) and, although the show will be approximately 3 hours and 45 minutes less than the typical Boss concert, it will definitely be spectacular.

The problem is that with Bruce doing the show, we’ve now run out of obvious choices for the half-time gigs of the future. Look at the list of past performers: U2, McCartney, The Stones, Petty, Prince. All of the biggest names have already put their stamp on the show. Who’s left?

The Who jumps to mind, although Pete Townsend’s ego might not fit in a stadium of that size. I’d say Dylan, but you know that Bob would subvert the whole thing and play something like “The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll.” I’d love to see the bewildered faces of those teenagers they pay to come out and dance near the stage when they attempt to mosh to that.

The Eagles are a big concert draw, but Don Henley would probably use up all of the time rambling about whatever environmental issue he’s on about these days. The Police could reunite, and the possibility of an onstage fistfight between Sting and Stewart Copeland is enticing, but probably not what the league is seeking.

What I’m concerned about is that they’ll go with a safe country act like Rascal Flatts to try and appeal to Middle America. Personally, I’d prefer to see Terry Bradshaw singing a medley of Nine Inch Nails songs to that nonsense any day.

It’s time to think outside the box, people. Thereby, I nominate Radiohead for next year’s gig. Just for shock value alone, it would be worth it. Plus there’s always the chance that pale and frail Thom Yorke will be mistaken for one of the placekickers and be called on for the game-winning field goal. “Paranoid Android” followed by the MVP trophy: Now that’s a great story.

So who’s on your Super Bowl halftime list?

Comments (2)