The Who once sang a song that included the line “I hope I die before I get old”. Well they didn’t. Their careers have been on life support for awhile, but they have managed to keep trudging along like an ageing, out of place, dinosaur; wondering where the hell all these furry mammals came from. These sixties holdovers are now about to get a shot of career adrenalin, courtesy of the NFL. The Who will be performing the half time show at the biggest sporting event of the year, the Super Bowl. This also happens to be one of the biggest (if not the biggest) television event of the broadcast season. If we are lucky maybe Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Sha-Na-Na can be the warm up acts. Why not just completely surrender the biggest stage on the planet to hippie leftovers, and just call the Superbowl halftime a tribute to Woodstock (the sixties music festival, not the tiny bird who hangs out with Snoopy).
So why are a bunch of guys, whose best career days happened before people walked on the moon, being resurrected to play such a high profile event? Why don’t we just let their music die a natural, painless death? There is a one word answer; fear. The last time the NFL tried to appeal to its target audience (which is any male that the AARP isn’t targeting in a membership drive) the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” happened. Since that point in time the Super Bowl acts have been Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. To be fair, Prince isn’t a sixties holdover, but at the height of his career, his dancers did wear leg warmers and “Frankie Says Relax” oversized t-shirts.
The NFL is afraid that going young means risking another wardrobe malfunction (God help us if Lady Ga Ga has one of those. People could get hurt). Now I know Ms. Jackson’s body is long past its “sell by” date, but her exposed breast shouldn’t be allowed to scare the NFL back into the musical Stone Age. There are those of us who would like to see the aforementioned Ms. Ga Ga, Slip Knot, or Brad Paisley. I doubt they will heed the call of those of us who are not ready to pull our pants up to our chests and start cashing social security checks, and next year’s show will be either Janis Joplin (yes I know she’s dead) or Madonna. At least the weak halftime shows give us the opportunity to run to the store and replenish our supply of munchies.
