Page 29 - Aruba Today
P. 29
PEOPLE & ARTS A29
Thursday 4 February 2016
Halftime at the big game is among the top culture moments
DAVID BAUDER In this Feb. 1, 2009 file photo, Bruce Springsteen performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl Up With People was such a
AP Entertainment Writer XLIII football game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers in Tampa, Fla. regular part of Super Bowl
NEW YORK (AP) — Warren halftime that Tim Lane par-
Duncan has something in Associated Press ticipated in four of them:
common with Madonna, singing “Philadelphia Free-
Beyonce, Mick Jagger, in on a mechanical lion last dom” for the 1976 Bicen-
Bruce Springsteen and year, and soared away on tennial-themed show, in
Prince — and doesn’t hesi- a platform designed to the chorus for the Big Band
tate to let his grandchil- look like a shooting star, tribute, operating a spot-
dren know about it every she had rehearsed the light for 1982’s salute to
year about this time. show some 40 times. “Any- Motown and picking par-
All performed at the Su- one who has ever done it ticipants for the 1986 show.
per Bowl halftime show, has been scared,” she told The youth education orga-
although it wasn’t quite Elle magazine later. “You nization still exists, and cel-
the spectacle in Duncan’s stay off the Internet for five ebrated its own 50th an-
time that it is now. He was days afterward.” niversary last year. Lane is
at snare drum for the Flori- Today, it’s almost impos- its vice president of alumni
da A&M University march- sible to conceive that the engagement.
ing band at Super Bowl III second Super Bowl fea- “We love the fact that we
in 1969, when the New York tured Miami-area high did it as often as we did,”
Jets upset the Baltimore school bands at halftime. he said. “We don’t know if
Colts. Florida A&M’s band per- we ever will again.”
“I really hated to see it tran- formed twice, once after It finally dawned on the
sition to what it is,” Duncan Duncan graduated. The NFL in the 1990s that half-
said. University of Michigan and time was a massive missed
“I really wish it would be Grambling State University opportunity.q
like the traditional band bands were other two-tim-
halftime show.” ers.
Those days have gone the Duncan can barely recall
way of leather helmets. The what his band played that
halftime show has become day; a James Brown tribute
one of the year’s top cul- sticks in his mind. He bet-
tural moments, so antici- ter remembers hanging
pated that it is commonly with his friends on a Miami
seen by more people than street at 3 a.m. when Jets
the game itself. The British quarterback Joe Namath
band Coldplay steps into rode by in a car filled with
the spotlight this weekend, women, holding out his in-
with an expected cameo dex finger in a promise of a
by Beyonce. victory he later delivered.
The Super Bowl show can The lineup for the 1980 half-
easily be divided into two time show — a salute to
eras: Before Michael Jack- the Big Band Era with the
son and after. His 1993 per- youthful singing group Up
formance established half- With People — practically
time as something more screams at anyone under
than an afterthought. With age 50 to find something
the fireworks and extras, else to do.
Jackson proved no gesture
could be too big.
The NFL begins planning
its halftime show months
in advance, negotiating
with chosen artists and
mapping out how things
will proceed, said Mark
Quenzel, NFL senior vice
president in charge of the
halftime show. Following
Janet Jackson’s breast-
baring episode in 2004, the
league has maintained
strict control.
“In some ways, it is the
worst 12 and a half minutes
of my year,” said Quen-
zel, who watches from the
sideline hoping for no wind,
rain, electronic glitches or
— shudder — wardrobe
malfunctions.
By the time Katy Perry rode
