With 111.9 million eyes on them Sunday night, popular British band Coldplay, with the help of Beyoncé, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson, took the Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show stage and it was a whole lot of everything.
The show kicked off with Coldplay front man Chris Martin crouched down on the football field as fans ran at him while he sang one of Coldplay’s most successful songs, “Viva La Vida.” Soon after the opening, an orchestra of kids (Gustavo Dudamel's Los Angeles Philharmonic Youth Orchestra joined Martin) joined the band on stage and everyone felt happy for the kids, but were still bored because the music was slow and looking at Martin singing solo on stage was just not that appealing.
After the orchestra of youths cleared off the stage, Coldplay began to play another one of their popular hits, 2011’s “Paradise” followed by their newest single “Adventure of a Lifetime” which anyone has barely ever heard, so you were not alone when you got bummed that they cut off “Paradise” for a song that you cannot sing along to.
Regardless of that, at this point the performance moved from boring to quite nice and calming actually. With the memorizing colors and graphics displayed, I felt like Coldplay brought a bit of softness to the Super Bowl stage that was expected, yet not completely appropriate, but it also made me feel like I was at a music festival like Coachella or something.
After that slight borefest was over, Bruno Mars and popular producer/DJ Mark Ronson took over the stage bursting into a slightly-slower version of their hit 2015 monster hit “Uptown Funk,” and the mood of the halftime show turned up a little bit, finally giving viewers something to dance and sing along to.
But then this little known artist named Beyoncé Knowles joined the team of halftime entertainers, entering from the field (yes, the field, not the stage) and performed her brand new single “Formation” that she dropped the night before and every lost their minds.
Not only was it the first time some viewers had even heard the new Queen Bey’s new song, her dance moves (and hair!) slayed the game as she was accompanied on the field by a drum line and a formation (get it) of dancers.
Then everyone watching lost their honest minds, when Beyoncé and Bruno broke into a dance battle and blended mash up of "Uptown Funk" and "Crazy in Love.” The two were eventually joined by Martin on stage, but let’s be honest, no one cared that Coldplay was even there anymore.
But then we were reminded that Coldplay actually was the halftime show headliner when they toned the music down once again and Martin sat at his piano, playing the melody to “Clocks” and that was accompanied by a montage of past Super Bowl halftime performers that gave me all the feels I could ever possibly feel and actually brought my pop culture loving eyes to tears, before moving into everyone’s (so biased) favorite Coldplay song, "Fix You” that continued to make me cry uncontrollably in my living room.
In a truly wonderful and fun ending that brought all three performances together along with their respective background acts to finish off the performance together before the camera’s panned up to the Super Bowl stadium audience who were holding up signs that together read, “Believe in Love.”
Then again, just when you thought it was all over and Bey and Bruno kind of gave Coldplay their headliner status back, immediately after the performance was over, a graphic announced that the Queen herself would be embarking on a the Formation World Tour this year and everyone forgot about everything that just happened and freaked out.
Though there were no major mishaps and the three performers ended up working well together, it was somewhat disappointing that no additional surprise artists joined them onstage.
Overall, although wowed by each performers individual performance, I thought the halftime show was a mess, just in the fact that the genres, outfits and message were all over the place at many moments during the show.
At once point I felt like I was at a club with Bruno, a concert with Beyoncé and a music festival with Coldplay, which had the potential to be insanely cool, if the performance was longer and if their microphones were actually turned up to a proficient volume because I, and many people I have talked to since, literally could only hear the background tracks the whole time, which was disappointing to say the least.
Each act though, slayed the game in their own right, and the NFL and halftime show producers got it right, when they made the decision to highlight previous Super Bowl performers during the Super Bowl’s 50th anniversary. Like seriously, that video footage of Michael Jackson was everything.
Also a disappointing realization: that Beyoncé (the queen of all things) and Bruno have no performed two Super Bowl Halftime Shows and have basically ran their course at the annual football game, giving us no hope that we will probably ever see them on that stage again.
Next year, I would, no joke, like to see Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, with a guest appearance by Left Shark, take the stage again and re-attempt nipple gate.
