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Prince's 'Purple Rain' was an apt anthem |
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Written by Evelyn McDonnell, MCT
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Monday, 05 February 2007 |
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For most artists, the deluge that made the Super Bowl halftime stage a slippery liability would have been a serious party damper.
Fortunately for Prince, his greatest anthem turned a soggy 10-minute show into a summation of purpose. The icon and iconoclast channeled Jimi Hendrix, Cab Calloway, James Brown and Little Richard as he sang, "I only want to see you standing in the Purple Rain," with water dripping off his face and notes reeling off his guitar.
It was a momentous salute to a dramatic career (even if at points, Prince inexplicably saluted careers besides his own).
The ex-glyph took the stage to a tune by other rock royalty: Queen's "We Will Rock You." He played some of his hits, like "Let's Go Crazy," but he also covered Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, and, um, the Foo Fighters. It's as if the tiny man with the famously colossal ego has started doubting his own worth.
His high-stepping dancers had to take it easy and his band was in the shadows. But Prince's voice was rich and confident, his guitar playing electrifying. The FAMU Marching 100 helped blow up the rock concert to stadium size and make the show in part a celebration of black American music.
In an age of rapidly changing cultural ecosystems, the Super Bowl as a mass event is the biggest dinosaur of all. Popular culture is breaking up into increasingly diverse taste groups, but the NFL still gathers Americans around the cathode-ray (or LED) hearth. It gives an estimated 140 million viewers a shared water-cooler topic, for one day at least. Then they disperse like so many satellite radio stations.
The Super Bowl hopes to retain its dominant position in sports and TV culture by speaking to a middle.
Prince is a pop legend with rock and R&B fans — but apparently even he felt the need to borrow from other artists' set lists.
The show's producers also are eager to present it as a family affair, not just a place where grown men can act out displaced warfare.
After the distinctly un-PG halftime of 2004 (remember "wardrobe malfunction?"), the producers have had to work on that image. Prince kept his shirt on. And for XLI's pregame show, the NFL went for the most childish common denominator: the circus.
The theatrical acrobats from Montreal's Cirque du Soleil broke in Dolphin Stadium by prancing, tumbling and leaping around the field in pop-art clown costumes and sunny props designed by South Florida's own Romero Britto.
New York DJ Louie Vega and his band Elements of Life laid down the grooves for the silly dreamscape: a joyous mix of house and Latin rhythms. "Here we are in paradise," singer Anane wailed soulfully. Except, of course, it was raining.
With one early off note, Billy Joel tackled the national anthem like a cabaret or saloon singer, pounding the piano and singing broadly, his strong New York accent giving the old warhorse distinct character. | Only registered users can write comments.
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