MUMBAI: The Super Bowl half-time show is traditionally built on grand gestures and eye-popping spectacle.
Think about Lady Gaga diving off the roof of Houston’s NRG stadium, or Katy Perry riding an animatronic lion, or Diana Ross soaring out of Arizona’s Sun Devil Stadium, waving to fans through the open door of a helicopter.
This year was a little different.
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Canadian R&B star The Weeknd was the interval act and, for the first time in the game’s 55-year history, he was largely forced to perform from the stands, rather than the pitch, in compliance with strict coronavirus protocols.
And his 12-minute show was “watched” by thousands of cardboard cut-outs, who bulked out the 25,000 socially-distanced fans at Florida’s Raymond James Stadium.
But the 30-year-old made the most of the restrictions with a gimmick-free show that put the emphasis on his songs.
The star, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, performed the majority of his set in front of a set modelled on the city in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis – all vertical layers and neon signs.
As the opening bars of Starboy rang out, the cityscape parted to reveal the singer, bathed in light, performing surrounded by a choir of red-eyed automatons.
Apart from a few Michael Jackson-inspired dance moves, he kept the focus on his vocals with a dramatic reworking of The Hills, before grabbing a camera and disappearing into a backstage maze of lights and mirrors.
Jostled and buffeted by two dozen dancers in full facial bandages, he performed a dizzying version Can’t Feel My Face, before emerging back into the stadium for a firework-assisted version of I Feel It Coming.
The action moved onto the playing field for the finale – a medley of House of Balloons and Blinding Lights – sung directly to the camera, without the usual requirement for stunts, guest stars or marching band interludes.
Tesfaye, who spent $7m (£5m) of his own money on the production, clearly felt it was best to let the music speak for itself.
He even lined up a greatest hits album to coincide with the Super Bowl, which is traditionally the most-watched event of the year on US television. (Last year’s half-time show, starring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez was watched by 103 million viewers, more than the 99.9 million who tuned in for the game itself.)
Before Sunday night, there was a feeling that The Weeknd’s dark-hued R&B could be an uncomfortable fit for a show that normally requires uplifting, crowd-pleasing anthems like Prince’s Purple Rain or Madonna’s Like A Prayer.
But Tesfaye wisely built the set around his more optimistic songs – including Save Your Tears and Earned It – while the soaring melody of Blinding Lights was a suitably euphoric closer.
In other words, he pulled it off, proving how badly The Grammys dropped the ball by snubbing him in this year’s nominations .
Which raises the question of how his set would have looked in a normal year. The chances are, it would have been a lot more elaborate. Speaking at a press conference before Sunday night’s show, the singer spoke in awed tones of the aforementioned Ross-o-copter .
“I wish I could have done that, I wish I’d thought of it,” he said. “Although I don’t think I have enough money to do it, to be honest.”
1 Call Out My Name (intro)
2 Starboy
3 The Hills
4 Can’t Feel My Face (including elements After Hours)
5 I Feel It Coming
6 Save Your Tears
7 Earned It
8 House Of Balloons
9 Blinding Lights
