superbowl halftime performances

opentune

Platinum Member
Damn, there is some great lip-syncing going on at these performances.
I really like Bruno Mars though, they should invite him every year. Did these folks get paid, or had to pay?
 
I think we discussed this last year and the acts pay to play there.
 
I think we discussed this last year and the acts pay to play there.

I see, I thought that was new model but didn't know for sure. Beyonce just released a single, I can see the investment to pay to play then. But For a band like Coldplay, I wonder if it increases their sales much. I mean they are established, so if they pay to play there they are simply investing in somehow increased purchases of tunes. It can't be cheap.
 
Playing the halftime show at the Super Bowl is a huge honor and, that is probably one of the reasons that performers don’t get paid. NFL spokesperson Joanna Hunter told Forbes that:

We do not pay the artists. We cover expenses and production costs.
 
Ya I get that, the honour of playing. Good point.
I have to say Gaga's national anthem was simply stunning. One of the best I've heard at a sports event.
 
I watch the halftime shows on mute. Too much hype, bells and whistles.
From my calculations, one of Beyonce's legs is the same size as Bruno Mars.
 
I thought the whole halftime show was disappointing. It's more choreography than music. Why can't they just have the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney again?
 
I thought the whole halftime show was disappointing. It's more choreography than music. Why can't they just have the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney again?

I miss the college marching bands... Texas A&M would have been magnificent!
 
With the Superbowl being in the stadium of the San Francisco team (actually in Santa Clara but whose counting) they should have just brought in a collection of artists celebrating the musical culture of the city. Bands like Journey, Santana, Metallica, Train are from Frisco and that's just off the top of my head, Im sure there are more. These game are played in big cities and it could be a theme for a few years until they have rotated through all of them. Makes a hell of a lot more sense than having Coldplay in freaking 2016.
 
They had a halftime show? All I saw was a bunch of dancers and fireworks. The sound and background noise was so bad you couldn't hear a word.
 
What's the deal with not playing live anymore? So somewhere hits a bad note and mistakes are made. Who cares? We're human.
 
I can never enjoy the halftime show sine I know it is not live. I don't care who is on stage, pretending to play and lip syncing is just beyond bad. I was also wondering if Lady Gaga was lip syncing. Although I had a hard time focusing on her singing when all I could think of was how she looked like Tina Turner in the video for her Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome song.
 
Don't know for sure about Bruno, or Beyoncé, but Chris Martin was live. Not the band though.

Re singing live-to-track, or just lip-synching, consider that events like the Super Bowl and other (genuinely) live broadcasts reach huge audiences. It's not about being human and risking a slip... it's got to be perfect, in one take, without any timing issues. In addition to the pressure involved in that knowledge on the artists' part, there are also things that can go wrong. Given the audience expectations - and no, they aren't a majority of musos demanding that the performance be 100% live - the network and the artists don't tempt fate. And let's face it, some singers and players can't pull off a sound & performance good enough for an audience of millions who expect those songs to be exactly right.

The Super Bowl (and the like) aren't concerts, they're produced events, and the big picture doesn't include making sure the band is actually playing. There are much bigger considerations in the scheme of things. I suppose if a band/artist was told they'd be miming to a track, and they didn't like the idea, they'd be welcome to decline the invitation. I hadn't heard of anyone actually bailing, and the closest protest we've seen is Flea deliberately leaving his bass unplugged. Of course, he and the rest of the guys still showed up. :)

Bermuda
 
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I was also wondering if Lady Gaga was lip syncing.

Gaga was live.

In case anyone's still not sure about her... she writes, she plays, and she can actually sing. That sets her apart from the pop tarts she was so readily compared with when she first appeared.

I'm not a fan of everything she does, but I recognize her as a true artist.

Bermuda
 
I've heard from many sources the National Anthem is pre-taped and is lip-sync'd to ensure no glitches.

Even Whitney's epic performance was lip-sync'd.
 
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