Outside of Kings of Leon and probably Green Day, I really doubt you’re going to get any of these bands - the powers that be are too terrified that someone will swear on air. Plus, I don’t think they bring the family-friendly, instantly recognizable stuff that TPTB seem to want lately.
That said, I think they’re fantastic choices.
I didn’t think they were that awful. Yes, the vocals left something to be desired, but the old boys can still play.
Thing is, though, the song choice was boring (the 3 themes to the 3 CSI’s? Hmmm…), and they did nothing to bring any new life to songs we’ve all heard a million and a half times. It was like having the oldies station on in the background.
Alice in Chains and Linkin Park are not going to be asked to play the Super Bowl. Unless almost everyone in America has heard of a band and few people are offended by them, they’re not a Super Bowl candidate. On ESPN, Bill Simmons guessed it’ll be Beyonce and Jay-Z next year, and I think that’s a pretty good bet. A Super Bowl performance is never going to be very surprising or daring - I guess Prince pulled out some surprises - so about the best you can hope for is that it’s well executed. I wish to hell they would scrap the whole damn thing. It’s the biggest game of the year and it’s just stupid to throw off the rhythm of the whole proceedings AND the players by making the halftime break twice as long as usual.
Yes, it’s just plain silly to think they are going to hire an obscure band for the Super Bowl. I think they might very well move back to a younger artist next year.
Looking back, it’s quite quaint some of the acts they used to have. The early years featured a lot of college marching bands, as well as the likes of Al Hirt, Andy Williams and of course Up With People.
Looking at that list, it seems the first really popular act they had was New Kids on the Block in 1991. However Michael Jackson’s show in 1993 was the first time I could remember the halftime show being a big deal.
The worst part of their performance, IMO, was Daltry’s voice. Where they used to be high notes, he just sort of growled or yelled in a low register. Maybe that’s what old time rock and rollers do when their voices get blown out. John Sebastian does the same thing, though much more softly. He’s a cool guy.
Here’s a link to the same song during their heyday, complete with prancing go-go girls. 
Yeah, some are certainly too ‘hardcore’ for a family-friendly Superbowl, but most aren’t.
I’d personally love to see Muse. They put on one of the best live shows today, from what I hear; though I know a lot of that is lighting, stage effects, etc… so I don’t know how well it would translate to 12 minutes on a football field. But they don’t really play any songs that could be considered offensive, AFAIK.
How about REM?
Daltrey did not sing the really high notes 20 years ago, his voice started to go downhill then.
I can’t imagine it will happen, but hearing Arcade Fire as background music last night made me think they’d put on a fantastic halftime performance.
And, for the record, I thought the Who’s mix was bad at the start (Pete’s vocals too loud, Roger’s too soft, no discernable crowd noise), but liked the performance overall.
Is it just me, or did Pete play about every fourth or fifth chord or so? If he didn’t throw in a few lead breaks he may as well have just stood on the stage yanking his arm in circles with a sign that says, “Look! It’s Pete Townsend!”
Well, that IS pretty much the basis of their set list for limited-time-slot appearances: IIRC the set at the 9/11 benefit concert back in '01 was Baba O’Riley, Who Are You, Behind Blue Eyes and Won’t Get Fooled Again. The medley list on Sunday took out Blue Eyes and added Pinball Wizard and See Me Hear Me Feel Me.
Me, I wondered if they’d pop on the Jumbotron a clip of David Caruso putting on his sunglasses just before the WGFA scream 
As another longtime fan, I must say that there was evident enthusiasm and they can still play, but the passage of time is making its mark – quite audibly in the vocals. And yes, I also smiled when I recognized the roundels.
In a cutesy referential moment, during the PreGame shows one of the commentators whipped out a “WHO DAT” sign in which the word “who” was set in a Union Jack font, I think some of the younger demographic may have missed the reference; another did a horrid but endearignly enthusiastic a-capella of the first verse of Love Reign O’er Me. Oh dear.
I saw Sebastian in concert in 1971 after he split from the Spoonful. He absolutely could not sing even then. He’s gotten worse.
But the early clip is important because it shows that it’s the music, not the loudness of the guitars, that matter. A young Spoonful could play halftime even with Sebastian playing autoharp. That’s why none of the new bands can qualify. No tunes.
So my fearless prediction for next year is that they’ll go back to country.
Harsh! LOL. In her defense, I thought that Ann Wilson had recently undergone gastric bypass surgery…?
I have no idea whether it was a good show or not (aside from the synchronized lights, which were awesome) because everyone in the room was belting out the lyrics.
Interesting side note: Two of the attendees at my party were at The Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979 when 11 people were stomped to death. They were in the thick of it all. The woman, who is 5’2", recounted how she had to keep lifting her feet off the ground and allow the crowd to carry her because had she tried to walk, she would have fallen and crushed to death. They eventually got inside and attended the concert knowing something was wrong because people around her kept whispering to each other and looking toward the door, but not what. They were aghast to find out that people had actually died. They stopped by a pay phone on the way home to call her mom and ask if she’d heard anything because they saw the news cameras and sheets over the bodies afterward, but didn’t know any details. When her mom answered, she broke down and sobbed because the news reporters had been reporting the tragedy, but there was no names being released. So very sad.
Question: Was that Daltrey’s real hair or some sort of wig? Obviously he’s not a blonde anymore, but I could have sworn that he had evidence of male baldness in the past.
Pete’s brother looks a lot like him. For a minute, I was llike, "Whoa? Why is Pete playing behind Daltrey?
I’m a longtime Who fan and my feelings were basically the same as others here – okay but not great performance (I saw them live just 4 or 5 years ago and they were better than this) – I kept thinking “Well, this is pretty good…considering their age.” The light show was fantastic, though. But all told I was left feeling like I’d just seen a very expensive nostalgia/reunion act at a county fair.
To those of you who’ve complained the set was basically the three CSI songs, to be fair those are all major Who hits. They’re even more widely recognized now thanks to CSI, but even before that “Baba O’Riley”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, and to slightly lesser extent “Who Are You” were among the band’s biggest radio hits.
That said, one could hardly fail to think of CSI during the halftime show. While watching I was actually thinking they might as well have just dropped the stuff from Tommy and done an all CSI-theme medley.
IMHO the best Who-related moment wasn’t the actual performance, but something I happened to catch during the pre-game show. I’m not a football fan so I have idea who any of these people were, but one of the announcers asked someone else sitting at the table (looked like maybe a retired player?) what his favorite Who song was. The other guy replied “Love, Reign O’er Me”…and then started to sing it. And wouldn’t stop! The announcer was moving on to other things like saying Katie Couric would be speaking with Obama, and this guy is still in the background belting out the song. I guess he was a real Who fan too, because he seemed to know all the words. Does anyone know who this was? I’d like to find the clip online.
Is “stomped” the term she used? Because I’ve long been under the impression that no one was trying to hurt anyone else, and in fact, a lot of people were trying to help each other. Festival seating should just never have existed, but the attendees weren’t animals.
That’s surprising. He was fine at Woodstock in 1969. (Here’s a clip of his performance of Darlin’ Be Home Soon.) I wonder if he might have had surgery on his vocal chords or something. The change seems to have been very sudden.
Agreed.
Funny, cuz when they started playing Who Are You, I sat on the edge of my seat waiting for the “who the fuck are you?” line, which has often made it past the censors.
I was hoping for a little bit of Quadrophenia, since that is by far their most underrated album…since I didn’t watch any of the game, I missed the announcer singing Love Reign.
Seems like the only decent way to see a The Who performance these days is to go to a Pearl Jam concert - I’ve seen them 3 times, and each time they throw in an incredible cover (Baba, Love Reign, and The Real Me). Why the hell don’t they just have THEM do the half time show next year? I mean, there’s always a CHANCE the Seahawks might make it, isn’t there?
I wouldn’t go that far: I’d prefer even the big name arena rockers that I rather dislike to the vocoded popstar dancers that are so big these days (well, except BTO, I really dislike them.)
What there is is a dearth of arena-rock style artists that play in arenas. I’d say that there are only 1 1/2 that I can think of that came from last decade: MCR and Coheed and Cambria (I count co+ca as 1/2 because they are not always big enough to play arenas.)
And I too am glad that the arena-rock artists don’t play arenas. I see Heart every time they come through, but would not if they were selling out arenas. They kick ass at the ~1000-capacity House of Blues, though.
My wife was wondering if Daltry had neck issues because he never turned his head.