(I wrote this shortly after The Who's performance at Super Bowl XLV)
After nearly a decade, we may have seen the last of Rock’s legends playing Super Bowl halftime. A fan of both football and rock & roll makes a case for why it should never have happened in the first place.
Picture this: There’s a sold-out stadium rock show featuring a band at the peak of their performing powers. The concert is televised to millions of people throughout the world. Halfway through the show, the band takes a break. While the boys are backstage, a group of NFL Hall of Famers takes their place, playing what amounts to a twelve-minute old-timers football game.
Sounds absurd, right?
Now, flip the scenario: There’s a sold-out football game featuring the two best teams in the NFL, their rosters packed with world-class athletes in their prime playing for the sport’s ultimate prize. The game is being broadcast to millions throughout the world. And for your halftime entertainment, a Hall of Fame rock band well past their prime plays a twelve-minute greatest hits medley.
The first scenario is pure fantasy, something the athletes wouldn’t dream of participating in. The second, however, in case it wasn’t obvious, represents what has become of America’s biggest sporting event, the Super Bowl.
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Growing up in New England in the 1970’s, I was a lover of both sports and rock & roll. I played football and I played drums, went to Bruins games and Bad Company concerts, collected baseball cards and KISS cards, read Sports Illustrated and Hit Parader. I was passionate about these activities, but never at the same time.
Sports and music were separate realms, but a small group of friends and I migrated freely between like keepers of an unspoken truce. We watched and played our sports in the afternoon and early evening, and on weekends, stayed up for Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert and The Midnight Special. We were knowledgeable and opinionated, and dismissed those who would attempt to cross over without proper credentials -- usually a drawer full of ticket stubs and a bookcase full of LPs and worn copies of The Sporting News were enough to gain admission. I suppose we were somewhat disliked, too, but we didn’t care; it was an important peace.
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A standard NFL halftime is 12-minutes long. But back in 1967, at the first Super Bowl, which wasn’t yet called the Super Bowl, someone decided that halftime of the biggest football game of the year should be a half-hour.
Not only did the extended break disrupt the natural rhythms of the league’s two best teams, making them wait two and a half times longer for the second half of the most important game of the season to begin, in later years, it also created an opportunity for rival networks to broadcast counter-programming and compete for a television audience bored by years of marching bands, Carol Channing, and Up With People.
Enter The King of Pop.
When Michael Jackson performed at Super Bowl XXVII in 1993, it marked the first time Super Bowl viewership actually increased during halftime. Thus, the modern-day Super Bowl halftime show was born.
Over the next several years, the NFL continued to target stars of popular music with Diana Ross, Boyz II Men, Stevie Wonder, and Phil Collins appearing among others. I was okay with this. Although I liked some of those artists, rock & roll was my passion and Super Bowl halftime remained for me nothing more than an extra long break between halves of a football game.
Even when Aerosmith traded verses with Britney Spears and ‘N Sync during a genre-bending halftime orgy at Super Bowl XXXV, I still wasn’t fazed; the Bad Boys from Boston hadn’t behaved badly for years, concentrating more on rap collaborations and power ballads than straight forward rock & roll. But things were about to change…
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When it was announced in the fall of 2001 that U2 would be the sole halftime act at Super Bowl XXXVI, I remember thinking it was a joke. Then, upon confirmation, I felt two mismatched worlds were about to collide.
Then Drew Bledsoe got hurt and Tom Brady got promoted and the hometown Patriots kept winning and I momentarily forgot about U2 until both ended up at the Superdome on February 3rd, and with the Patriots ahead 14-3 at halftime, U2 took the stage and played brilliantly and then the Patriots won their first Super Bowl and everything was great. And when Shania Twain, No-Doubt, and Sting played the following year, I thought, Okay, Super Bowl XXXVI was a one-off, once-in-a-lifetime event where my favorite team and one of my favorite bands stood together on top of the world.
But just for one day.
Two years after U2’s appearance, the NFL handed over the halftime controls to MTV, leading to Justin Timberlake’s liberation of Janet Jackson’s right breast. The next day, talk was divided between the Patriots’ second Super Bowl victory in three years and indecent exposure. The FCC slapped CBS with a $550,000 fine and the NFL banned MTV from future halftime shows. I thought back to 1985 and how my stomach whirled watching Joe Theismann’s leg snap in two on Monday Night Football; ABC showed it over and over. According to those who police the airwaves, a half-second of bare breast was obscene, while showing gruesome multi-angle replays of a career-ending, compound leg fracture was deemed good, hard football.
Perhaps MTV were the lucky ones.
The next season, Paul McCartney was summoned to clean up the Super Bowl filth. I had seen McCartney two years earlier in Boston, and the show was great. But with the halftime score Patriots-7 Eagles-7, I was too nervous and distracted to pay attention to Sir Paul’s performance.
On Monday morning, debates ranged from whether or not the victorious Patriots were a dynasty, to whether or not, at age 62, McCartney was too old. Both debates were about contextualizing recent events; the Patriots were being compared to great teams of the past, while McCartney was being judged on preconceived notions of age and reason.
Several years ago, I attended a party at which a friend was taking a headcount for an up-coming AC/DC concert. “Look,” another friend said, “I’m 35 years old, I don’t think I need to be going to any AC/DC concerts.”
He missed a hell of a show.
Afterward, I thought, man, can that really happen? Can people actually outgrow rock & roll? Then I remembered Mick Jagger’s famous quote; at 35, he said, “I’d rather be dead than singing “Satisfaction” when I’m 45.” And after playing “Thunder Road” at a show in 2002, a 52 year-old Bruce Springsteen said, “That line, ‘We ain’t that young anymore…’ I was 24 years old.”
The point is, rock & roll is nearing the end of its first lifetime, and no one, including the musicians, knew how far it would, or could, be taken, or how long people would pay attention. The early expectations for longevity were along the same lines as professional athletes; give it all you’ve got in your 20s, maybe maintain some popularity through your 30s, and if you’re real lucky, people might still think you’re cool when you’re 40.
But the rockers kept going, breaking every rule of acceptance and expectation, including their own, setting new precedents with each new album and tour. Some fans stayed on. Others, however, found themselves waning and chose to camouflage their own fears of mortality by openly resenting the rebels of their youth for continuing to sing of sex, drugs, and revolution. How dare you grow old and not go away, they seemed to be saying.
And when The Rolling Stones signed on for Super Bowl XL, I prepared myself to hear more from the ageist, Super-Bowl-square-yahoos about who should be doing what, and at what age.
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The Patriots had been knocked out of the playoffs early. Usually that means a leisurely, anxiety-free Super Bowl Sunday. So imagine my surprise when I found myself getting nervous as halftime approached. Looking down at my sweaty palms, I wondered, what is this? Then it hit me; my heroes were about to be judged by a worldwide panel of self-proclaimed experts just waiting to tear them down. It was like waiting for a family member to appear on American Idol.
When I see The Stones in concert, there’s no concern for how they’ll be received; we’re all there for the same purpose. This was different. Most of the people at the game were not Rolling Stones fans. In fact, according to a friend who once attended, most people who go to the Super Bowl barely qualify as football fans. And the contest-winners who flood the halftime field? Nothing more than props, really.
Three songs in twelve minutes is closer to a glorified soundcheck than an actual show, but The Stones, who were in the middle of a world tour, gave a pretty good account of themselves. They even had a few lyrics censored for old time’s sake. But it wasn’t until Mick, who, at 62, had long outlived his death-wish regarding “Satisfaction”, introduced that very song, saying, “This one we coulda done at Super Bowl I,” that I realized what was so wrong with this latest union of football and rock & roll.
The Rolling Stones practically wrote the rulebook on why sports and rock & roll don’t mix. Drugs, arrests, drug arrests, tax evasion, deportations, dead guitar players, Altamont, more drug arrests – such debauchery has always been publicized and glorified in the rock world, while professional athletes, teams, and the leagues they represent go to great lengths to cover up scandals such as gambling, amphetamine abuse, and steroids.
So, I say, No, Mick, you could not have played “Satisfaction”, or any other song, at Super Bowl I. Even if the NFL were hiring rock bands in 1967, they wouldn’t have looked your way if you were wide open on a desperation Hail Mary pass. You were dangerous. They would have waited you out. Forty years. Until we’d reached a point where you and Keith were considered a safer option than Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.
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The term “sell-out” is a tired, overused expression when applied to rock & roll musicians. A lot of older stars, whether victims of unscrupulous management or fast-talking lawyers, missed out on the rewards honest publishing deals would have brought. Who could blame them for cashing in when the moneyman comes calling with an offer for a commercial, theme song, or corporate sponsorship?
Super Bowl entertainers do not receive appearance fees. Supposedly, they do it for the exposure, which, according to the sales-tracking system, Soundscan, leads to a spike in album sales and digital downloads. But just how much money a “spike” represents has never been made clear, making it difficult to accuse entertainers of playing the Super Bowl for the money.
Tom Petty was one of the last corporate holdouts, so it was a bit of a surprise when he agreed to play the Bridgestone halftime show at Super Bowl XLII.
“I’m not sponsored by Bridgestone,” he said. “My deal is with the NFL.”
On Super Bowl Sunday, New England was back in the big game. The halftime scoreboard read:
(Heavily favored and undefeated) Patriots-7
(NFC wildcard) New York Giants-3
I watched Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 4-song set, but while hearing “I Won’t Back Down” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream”, I saw flashes of Giants’ linemen Michael Strahan and Jason Tuck standing over a crumpled Tom Brady. And while those flashes were nothing more than subliminal reminders that the Giants were a serious threat to the Patriots’ perfect record, the flashes of the Bridgestone logo in the corner of my TV screen were very real.
The next day, we New Englanders mourned our less than perfect Patriots, while the rest of the nation celebrated the Giants’ great victory. And in a planned attempt to cash in on their Super Bowl exposure, tickets for Petty’s 2008 tour went on sale.
Demand was high with many dates selling out in minutes. In other words, the 2008 tour would be the same as every other Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tour of the past thirty years when they didn’t play the Super Bowl.
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Early in his career, Bruce Springsteen grew weary of the restrictions and lack of respect he received as an opening act for other musicians. In 1974, after a blistering 80-minute set at a show in Central Park, he watched headliner Anne Murray perform while most of the partisan Springsteen crowd filed out. Having turned the tables, Bruce decided he’d played enough supporting gigs and a reputation began to form.
With the freedom to play as long as he wanted, and then play some more, there wasn’t a crowd or curfew that could outlast Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Starting in the late ‘70s, shows regularly pushed past the 3-hour mark as encores piled up one on top of the other. The band and their fans took pride in the spontaneity – setlist changes on the fly -- and length of the shows, and that Bruce Springsteen would never be the opening act for anyone.
I have seen Bruce nearly seventy times since 1980, and when I heard he and the E Street Band would be playing the 2009 Super Bowl halftime show, I wondered why he would relinquish his hard fought freedom for twelve minutes of scripted over-exposure.
When asked a version of that question at the pre-game press conference, Bruce described what they were going to attempt as “the last twelve minutes (of their 3-hour show); that’s what you’re gonna see.”
I know many Springsteen fans and if any of us missed the first 2:48:00 of a show, it would be looked upon as a complete disaster.
When asked the standard question, Why now? Bruce explained that “initially, (playing the Super Bowl) was sort of a novelty and didn’t quite feel right” he then added, with a chuckle, “We have a new album coming out, dummy!”
Keeping those explanations in mind on the night of Super Bowl XLIII, I watched the band cut verses, choruses, and solos in order to cram four songs into twelve minutes. Included in the set was a total of 90 seconds of material from that new album. There were plenty of fireworks, though. And as the band rushed off stage to make way for the headlining Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, it felt strange to know they couldn’t play an encore if they wanted to. It felt sort of like a novelty.
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During their late-‘60s to mid-‘70s prime, The Who were arguably the most exciting band in the history of rock & roll. Twirling microphones, windmilling guitars, exploding drums, and, most of all, great songs – The Who had it all. Each member played as if they held the lead instrument, but somehow it meshed, and a band is what you heard. And they were loud -- the loudest band on record to that point. The Who pushed things further than any other band, employing an impossible-to-maintain level of intensity in doing so. Perhaps that’s why, of all the rock legends to play the Super Bowl, The Who, who were not going on tour, or releasing a new album, had the least to gain.
If you’d been following The Who for the last eight years, you would have recognized the band that took stage at halftime of this year’s Super Bowl. Since John Entwistle’s death in 2002, the band has toured as consistently as in any period since the early ‘80’s. You would have known Roger Daltrey’s voice doesn’t quite rise to where it used to and that Pete Townshend looks more the writer/composer than rock star. You would have known the sidemen and rhythm section are no match for Entwistle and Keith Moon, and who would be? Entwistle set the standard against which all rock bassists are measured and Moon remains the most unique and impossible-to-replicate musician in rock history.
But The Who are survivors. And on the Monday after the Super Bowl, they took a beating unlike any previous halftime performer. “They’re too old.” “They look like hell.” “They need to hang it up.” Everyone weighed in, and most were in a big hurry to see The Who go away, taking them to task for once singing “Hope I die before I get old”. Wasn’t that the line that made us love them in the first place?
I was pissed-off.
Pissed-off at the Patriots for getting shellacked at home in the divisional round and for no longer being a dominant team; pissed-off at the halftime producers for putting The Who on an outstretched circular stage, 95% of which was girders and lights, completely inaccessible to the band, separating them by fifty yards from the nearest spectator; pissed-off at Bruce, Petty, The Stones, and The Who for agreeing to assist the NFL and its network affiliates in their annual ratings-grab by climbing into the giant musical dunk-tank known as the Super Bowl halftime show; and I was pissed-off at U2 for making me once believe that it might not be such a bad idea.
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I recently visited the world’s video replay booth, YouTube, to review U2’s Super Bowl XXXVI performance. I hate to admit that, even without the context of the Patriots’ eleven-point halftime lead, the three-song set still gives me goose bumps. I am, however, happy to announce that I figured out the three reasons why it stands alone.
The first is a circumstance that, hopefully, will never again be presented to any artist. U2 played to a politically and spiritually unified America and seized the moment by performing three songs – “Beautiful Day” “MLK” “Where the Streets Have no Name” --that fit perfectly in tone with a nation still healing from the 9/11 attacks. The second reason was the relative youth of the band. All four members of U2 were between forty and forty-one years of age, that’s a full generation younger than the rockers who would follow. In fact, U2 are the only rock band to appear as the sole act at the Super Bowl before being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Third, U2 were in the midst of a second career-peak behind their latest album, All that You Can’t Leave Behind, and the just-completed, hugely successful Elevation Tour.
Apply the last two factors — relative youth and revitalized popularity — to those who would follow and it might’ve looked something like this…
1982 - SB XVI - Rolling Stones - album: Tattoo You - tour: between American and European legs of no-name tour
1983 - SB XVII - The Who - album: It's Hard - tour: six weeks after final date of Farewell Tour
1988 - SB XXII - Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band - album: Tunnel Of Love - tour: one month before opening of Tunnel Of Love Express Tour
1992 - SB XXVI - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - album: Into The Great Wide Open -tour: between American and European legs of Touring The Great Wide Open
Certainly the above scenarios would have added much-needed life to the Super Bowl in an era where the average margin of victory was 19 points. But, of course, it didn’t happen. And in the years between then and when they actually played halftime, each band lost an original member; Bill Wyman left The Stones in ‘92, drummer Stan Lynch was fired by Petty in ‘94, The Who lost Entwistle, and E Street Band organist Danny Federici died of melanoma in 2008. U2 is the only band to play the Super Bowl with its original lineup intact and not looking as if they were there to receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award.
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So what would I say to my rock & roll icons if given the chance?
To Bono:
In a 2005 Chicago Tribune interview in which Bono tried to explain his “vision of what rock is” he responded to criticism over appearing at the Super Bowl saying, “…to me the Super Bowl was our Ed Sullivan moment. It just came 25 years later.”
The problem, Bono, is that Ed Sullivan moments don’t come 25 years later. For rock n roll, they came in the ‘50s and ‘60s and were like lunar landings for bands of the era. I remember U2’s Ed Sullivan moment, it came in1981, on a new television network called MTV. The song was “I Will Follow”. I’ve been a fan ever since and U2 has been selling out stadiums for decades. Back in the day, an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show earned you a ticket to stardom. In 2002, stardom earned you a ticket to the Super Bowl.
To Mick Jagger:
At the Super Bowl XL press conference, Keith Richards was asked how he would outlive the cockroaches since the running joke was they would join him as the only survivors of nuclear war. “That is so bad,” Mick Jagger said, before Keith answered, “I’ve got to eat ‘em.” Mick then decided to take one final question, as things were “getting too silly.”
I wonder, Mick, if that was just a fleeting moment, or if you realized how silly the whole Super Bowl halftime process is. From the embarrassment of facing the unimaginative mainstream press, to the organizers alienating most of your fanbase, banning anyone over age forty-five from the on-field audience (the ban was later lifted, but the message was clear: The Rolling Stones were deemed too old to attend their own performance); was the anticipated spike in sales worth the indignities?
To Tom Petty:
In 1980, Tom Petty told Rolling Stone, “I find it difficult to believe anybody really cares that much about what I have to say. I mean, it’s only rock & roll – just disposable crap that won’t mean much in 10 years.”
Tom, as a fan of both your music and rock & roll, I’m so glad you were wrong. I’m guessing you’re glad, too. As far as I’m concerned, those early Heartbreakers’ records mean even more 30 years later. Every time you release a new record or head out on tour, the intrinsic value of everything that came before goes up. Having said that, I sometimes miss that young, cynical Tom Petty; the guy who bared his teeth when he sang, punched walls out of frustration, fought to keep record prices down so I could afford them when I was 16 years old, and who would’ve scoffed at the thought of playing the Super Bowl. What I’m trying to say is, the Bridgestone logo didn’t really bother me, what did bother me is that it didn’t seem to bother you.
To Bruce Springsteen:
In another answer to the “Why now?” question during the 2009 Super Bowl press conference, Bruce recounted a dinner conversation with an unnamed “young musician” that led him to reconsider his past reluctance to the halftime show:
Young musician: Hey, why don’t you play the Super Bowl?
Bruce: Well, you’re kind of playing in the middle of a football game.
Young musician: Man, I hope one day my band’s big enough to play the Super Bowl.
Bruce: Hmm, let me think about that…
Bruce, you blew it! You had a chance to set the young lad straight. Super Bowl? When did that become the goal? What about Madison Square Garden? Or Glastonbury? Or Bonnaroo? You were on the right track, too. Accept you’re not kind of playing in the middle of anything. When you play Super Bowl halftime, you are in the middle of a football game. And I know you had a blast, but I wish you hadn’t done it. I wish you’d stood your ground, and maybe that conversation would have gone something like this…
Young musician: Man, I hope one day my band’s big enough to play the Super Bowl.
Bruce: Son, I don’t know much about football, but we’re musicians, so if you’re ever big enough to play the Super Bowl, you better be wearing cleats, shoulder pads, and a helmet.
To Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend:
“If my hearing is going to be a problem, we’re not delaying shows,” Pete Townshend recently told Rolling Stone. “We’re finished, I can’t really see any way around the issue.”
You guys have said farewell more times than Brett Favre. But unlike Favre, I was always glad to hear you were coming back. Now, after your March 30th performance of Quadrophenia at Royal Albert Hall, the end could really be here. For those in attendance, it must have been a treat to see you one last time, playing complete songs the way they were originally conceived. For those of us in The States, and the rest of the world, however, we’re left with a twelve-minute medley between halves of a football game.
In his tribute to Bruce Springsteen at the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors, Jon Stewart said, “Whenever I see Bruce Springsteen do anything, he empties the tank...every time.” With the exception of Super Bowl XLIII, where the gas gauge barely had time to move, I would agree. But I’m talking to you, Roger and Pete. Throughout your career, the Who also made a habit of emptying the tank. Along the way, you also flattened the tires, broke the windows, and lost a couple passengers, all while driving the loudest and fastest car in the race. If Royal Albert was indeed the finish line, the Super Bowl was nothing but an unnecessary stop along the way.
Don’t agree?
To All:
Next year’s Super Bowl will be broadcast on Fox. In a recent LA Times interview, Fox Sports CEO, David Hill, was asked if the halftime act will be under the age of 60.
“Oh, please, God, yes,” he said. “If I saw Pete Townshend’s belly again I was going to throw up. In his younger days, it might have been rippling muscle, but now it’s like mine – rippling fat.” As for Roger, Hill said, “…poor old Roger had one of the purest voices, but it’s history.” And in case his point wasn’t clear, he added, “From the conversations I’ve had with the NFL, we won’t need oxygen.”
So, there you go. I’m not sure if I want to thank Mr. Hill for providing the voice of reason, or kick him in the teeth for providing the voice of disrespect. Either way, it looks like it’s over. And it wasn’t your decision, but a 63 year-old television executive’s. He went to high school around the same time you all did. You wouldn’t have hung around with him then, and he’s not going to let you hang around with him now. In fact, he’s just the type of person Keith Richards was referring to in a 2002 Rolling Stone interview; when asked, How do you deal with criticism about the Stones being to old to rock & roll?
“People want to pull the rug out from under you, because they're bald and fat and can't move for shit. It's pure physical envy -- that we shouldn't be here. How dare they defy logic?”
I remember back when the Monday after the Super Bowl was a daylong exercise in football rumination and deliberation. Over the last several years, however, I’ve spent a good part of my days-after listening to unqualified, scornful recaps of the compressed, halftime macro-concerts given by my favorite musicians. Since I didn’t really agree with what my idols were doing, it hasn’t been easy to defend them. In my opinion, by playing halftime of a football game, they were the ones defying logic.
I don’t know what Hill, who isn’t bald, but is fat, has in store for next season’s Super Bowl halftime show. But I can take solace in the knowledge that if any of rock & roll’s legends show up at the game, they’ll be in the stands, and not on the field.
