My Halftime Show Post

So that image is how it all started last night at during the Super Bowl halftime show. The black and white image of the man himself, Bruce Springsteen, and the Big Man, Clarence Clemons, which played homage to the classic "Born to Run" album cover from 1975. I love the image. I loved last night's show!

Believe it or not, I wasn't sure if I was gonna post about the halftime show, mostly because people were expecting me to and I actually started to have thoughts like, "There are more important things to post. This is just fun, not really important." But, that's just it, it's FUN! That's what I saw up there for 13 minutes, pure fun!

Here's how it broke down:

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out - 4 minutes

Born to Run - 3 minutes, 40 seconds

Working on a Dream - 1 minute, 40 seconds

Glory Days - 3 minutes, 20 seconds

I was pleased, very pleased. If you were not familiar with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band before the halftime show you probably are thinking one of two choices:  (1) That was a great performance and I can see why Doah would like to experience that for a couple hours; (2) I don't get it.

As far as the latter, I've heard a few people complain about Bruce's schlock, that it was high on the "cheese factor" so to speak.  Here's the thing, that "cheese factor" thing you saw is what I like. If indeed that is "hokey," then hokey is what I've always liked!

Bruce is a showman. He's always been aware that he has a job to do, he needs to take us away on a journey of pure fun! He actually works to have everybody come along. He's always worked the crowd with fun stuff like, "Put the chicken fingers down . . . is there anybody ALIVE out there?" I adore that. Anybody could go out and just play the guitar and sing, but the man works the crowd and if you'll go along with him, you'll have the time of your life. So when he yells, "Is there any body alive out there?" I yell back, "Yea! I am! Fully!" When he says, "We're going have a rock 'n' roll baptism tonight!" I'm the first one in the water! That knee-sliding, back bending, piano jumping, joke-making, "preacher man" with exhortations, showman is what I've always enjoyed.

What I think we got was what I had hoped for: that he could somehow get something that actually felt like a real Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band show and compress it into such a short time period. I think he did that. I think those of you who have not ever seen him live saw a really really mini version of an E Street Band show. Make no mistake about it either, those other guys up there with him matter. I do think you witnessed the power of the legendary E Street Band! Albeit, you'd never see fireworks or pyrotechnics at an E Street Band show, but you would see Mighty Max pounding those drums like his life depended on it! And, you would see Little Steven smiling and clowning around with his friend while they shared the mic.

So, what did I think of the halftime show? Two words: pure joy!