Super Bowl LIII Halftime Show

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Adam Levine (left), Big Boi (middle), and Sleepy Brown (right).

Jillian Thibodeau, Editor

As many people already know, Super Bowl 53 was held on Sunday, February 3rd at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. However, this story is not about the game, it’s about the Halftime show. This year’s halftime show consisted of three performers; Maroon 5, Travis Scott, and Big Boi. It lasted almost fourteen minutes and some really liked it, while others thought that it could have been better.

Maroon 5’s Adam Levine opened the show with the song ‘Harder to Breath’ and ‘This Love’. At this point, fireworks and fire was shooting out behind Levine as he was singing the first song. Then during the second song, both of those things calmed down. Following these two songs, ‘Sweet Victory’ from Spongebob introduced Travis Scott and his song ‘Sicko Mode’. Travis rapped the first verse of the song by himself before Levine came onto the stage again and played his guitar. At this moment it seemed as if both artists were having a great time, as they were jumping around to the music. Once the song ended, Scott fell backwards into the audience and they carried him off the stage. Next, the Georgia State University Marching Band started off Maroon 5’s song ‘Girls Like You’. When Levine came in and started singing, he was singing solo with no background music. This changed quickly though, when the drumline came back into play and a gospel singer pretty much stole the show from Levine. After about a minute, the song changed once again, to ‘She Will Be Loved’. Levine was already walking through the audience by the time the next song started and people were holding lanterns that would soon be let go. The song added a nice personal touch to the set list, as there had only been upbeat and fast songs before this. However, that didn’t last long because Big Boi arrived to the stage in a car, and he was singing his song ‘Kryptonite’. As soon as he got out of the car and onto the stage, the song changed again, but to his song ‘The Way You Move’. During this song Levine and Sleepy Brown joined him on the stage for the chorus. When the other two artists exited the stage, Levine and the rest of Maroon 5 performed ‘Sugar’, which is a popular song by the band. Nothing out of the ordinary happened during this song. But this is very different than Levine’s performance of ‘Moves Like Jagger’. When the song started, the audience went crazy, especially when Levine took his shirt off. He ended the song and the halftime show with a literally high note, while fireworks and fire shot out behind him. The ending was very exciting to most people and the audience was ecstatic. Although this may be true, the people who watched the halftime show from their living rooms had contradicting opinions on the show.

To start off, many people liked that Spongebob Squarepants had been added to the show, because they watched it when they were younger. Junior, Scarlett Breton mentioned that it was her favorite part because she feels like the rest of the halftime show was, “forced and boring.”  While Junior, Kayla Ryan said that, “It [the Spongebob part] was fun and I liked how they included a show from my childhood, I felt nostalgia while watching it.”

Not only this, but there were different opinions on the halftime show performers. For example, some people, like Ryan, liked the fact that Maroon 5 was the main performer in the show. She stated that, “I personally like Adam Levine and that Maroon 5 included older songs that I had forgotten about. I really liked hearing them again.” Different from this, Breton mentioned that she likes Maroon 5 and Travis Scott, but thought, “I didn’t really like any of the songs that they sang and the ones that they did sing, were okay.” Even though she liked the singers in general, she mentioned that she would rather have other artists perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.

When asked what Ryan would improve about the halftime show, she answered by saying, “The sound quality because it was really hard to hear the singer and rappers over the rest of the noise.” So overall, the halftime show may have been a success, but it was not liked by everyone. Many had different personal opinions on it and agreed that different things could be done to make it even better. We can only hope that next year’s performers knock it out of the park and that it is entertaining to everyone.