The moment we’ve been waiting for is nearly upon us: The Boss will descend on the Super Bowl halftime show to christen a new era and, more importantly, promote his new album. When news of The Boss’ appearance first hit, way back in September 2008, we had no way of knowing he’d have a new album to promote. Does he open with the new single or stick it in the middle of his set? As we began doing when this post first appeared, there’s time to predict his set list. Will halftime have to last 4 hours? Will The Boss tell a story of the time his dad gave him a hard time for playing rock ‘n roll rather than trying out for the football team?
This post initially appeared 9/29/08.
The Boss will be resurrecting his mighty Iwo Jima of rock at the 2009 NFL Super Bowl halftime show. Although the event is a few months and many concussions, blown pool picks, and overblown endzone celebrations away, feel free to start blogging on your predictions for this performance…NOW!
The setlist:
The Rising
Glory Days
Born to Run
I think you’ve nailed the setlist, Oats! I’m looking forward to the montage of the finally retired (until next April), grizzled Brett Favre playing in the background as The Boss sings “Glory Days”.
The montage behind “Born to Run” will NOT include clips from any Eagles team coached by Andy Reid.
Not so fast, Favre retires as often as Clemens!
He’s pulling out of this town – to LOSE!
Springsteen wants them to add three more Super Bowls to extend it to a four night gig.
Glory Days seems obligatory, but that would really suck for a Halftime Show song. If he doesn’t do Rosalita, I will consider it a total failure.
I’m more interested in potential E-Street Halftime prop bets over songlist speculation, though. Will they make The Big Man wear a jersey? Does Little Steven have a zubaz-patterned do-rag? Does The Boss put together an anecdote about having to quit football practice because his old man told him he needed to get a job? What obscure Springsteen reference will Costas drop? Do they coerce Bruce into going up into the booth with Michaels and Madden?
Born To Pass?
I hope the Boss borrows Axl’s Longest Yard “Mean Machine” Burt Reynolds Jersey for the gig
Is it really possible I won’t be subjected to “Born In the USA?” I mean, is it feasible? Isn’t that why they hired him? Or are the rights to that one now owned by the Patriot Act?
I like that idea, though I could also see them all having Asbury Park High jerseys. Clemens’ will say “Big Man” on the back, and he’ll be kind of embarrassed and mad about it, but he won’t say anything to Bruce. He’ll just keep bottling his emotions up inside and die a little.
I kind of think they won’t do Born In The USA. He should try a Prince cover.
Will Nils Lofgren wear the football pants and knee pads?
Workin’ On A Dream (new single)
The Rising (9/11 and or New Prez)
Glory Days (Sports song / 80’s)
Born To Run (signature song)
This is about the only way he can get this done in 12 minutes
Maybe Dancing In The Dark, but I hope not
Doesn’t the woman in the middle of the picture (Bruce’s missus?) look like Cyndi Laupner?
Otherwise, I have no enthusiasm for this game whatsoever, which started 2 seconds after the end of last year’s Super Bowl. I wish the game was between the Eagles & the Steelers instead of a 9-7 team that got whupped 47-7 late in the season by the Pats. What happened Mr. Mod?
Diskojoe, as soon as it looked like the Eagles were going to beat the Giants I thought, “We’re headed to the Super Bowl!” Then, as the week leading up to the Cards game approached and I heard other Philly fans boldly boast the same thing, I thought we might have trouble. The Eagles under Andy Reid play a finesse game. If they can’t fire on all cylindars they seem incapable of digging in and getting the job done through some old-fashioned smash-mouth football. People got all excited about the Birds’ defense in the second half of the year, but I didn’t. I think they leave too many turnover opportunities on the field. I’m not looking forward to another year of the Andy Reid Show. He’s been a great coach at getting the team competitive and keeping them in the playoff mix, but I think he’s the Dan Reeves of our times. I’d love to see a new coach come in with a more basic, focused message so that McNabb might be able to lead a tougher, more consistent team to the Super Bowl the way another good-but-not-great QB like Roethlissberger (sp?) gets to do in Pittsburgh. McNabb and the Eagles’ stable of slot receivers are not capable of re-creating the Greatest Show on Turf. I may be among a slight minority of Eagles fans, but I don’t think McNabb’s the problem; I think Reid expecting McNabb to be The Solution is the problem.
If I watch the game at all I may have to root for the Cardinals. I often try to root for the team that knocked my team out of the playoffs; it seems like good sportsmanship. Also, I’m officially sick of the Steelers. I still see Bill Cowher’s jaw and the spittle flying out of his mouth. I had trouble liking his teams, in part because they weren’t the Classic Steel Curtain-era team I grew up with. Kordell Stewart, Mike Tomczak, and all those other dog QBs they ran out there bugged me. Big Ben’s better than them, but I don’t like him either. Plus, I don’t like the Look of Hines Ward and Troy Polumanu. The Steel Curtain team had players with a much better Look. Larry Fitzgerald, on the other hand, is a Beautiful Man. I like him, and I have to admit I like seeing the rebirth of Kurt Warner. The Cards should start the game with a no-huddle offense and see if they can get the Warner-Fitzgerald show unlocked early.
As for The Boss, I’m calling him starting out with whatever his new single is, then playing “Born to Run” and some surprise cover, which will be set up by a brief shout out to Obama and released for download on iTunes during the third quarter.
He’s only got 12 minutes, so I’m not sure there’s time for Born to Run, which is four and a half minutes long. I’m thinking something snappy like Hungry Heart or Dancing in the Dark, plus The Rising and the new single.
We’ve got an excellent sports columnist here in KC, Joe Posnanski, and he wrote an interesting column yesterday after Bruce’s press conference about the halftime but mostly about Nils Lofgren:
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/01/29/bruce-and-nils/
Apparently they’ve been asking Bruce to do this gig for years, and he finally gave in, partly because U2, Prince, and Petty made it respectable. He’s threatening to do more than one new song, but I’d be very surprised if he did that.
I predict the show will open with the guitar figure to “Born To Run” for a few measures, then segue into “Glory Days” after an awkward snare roll/cymbal crash. After that, it’s some new rocker from his recent album. This in turn will segue into the last verse and outchorus of “Rosalita.”
I’m going to go with Promised Land as the dark horse.
He did it at the Obama rally in Philly and I could see him wanting to reemphasize the message of steely determination in the face of tough economic circumstances during the outset of Obama’s first term.
I agree that both Glory Days and Born To Run are a lock.
Posnanski is really good. There are a lot of pop culture things on his blog that dovetail with issues dealt with here.
Not long ago he had a poll trying to determine Iconic songs of the Rock and Roll era. His love for Bruce disturbs me of course.
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/
I wonder if he is going the medley route. That would mess everyone up real good!
Bruce is going ditch the band and bring out Pete Seeger to do a 12 minute version of “If I Had a Hammer”
He’ll throw Clarence a bone and let him play egg shaker off to the side, the Big Man has to get paid.
Cards had better score early and often if they intend to win this one. Their quickness has surprised everybody, but their lack of size and a complete team begins to catch up with them over the course of a game. The Eagles, a team without smash-mouth defense, nearly caught them. The Steelers are bigger and stronger than the Eagles, and not only can they play smash-mouth, last week they smashed the team with the most deadly defense of the past decade. If the Cards run up the score early, the Steelers don’t have the kind of great offense that could come from too far behind. But if the Steelers stay close in the first half, they’ll dominate the second half. Call it Steelers 27, Cards 14.
For Bruce, I predict that the passion of his rock faces will totally overwhelm the tepid sluggishness of his band. Look for a number of shots of intense chin and open mouth as an attempt to distract listeners from the actual proceedings. Beware raised fist moments: they’ll be signs of desperation.
I’m going to try to participate in the live blogging, but 12 minutes isn’t really long enough for a live blogging event. If I’m typing I’ll miss something, and it’ll be over before I can read anyone else’s comments.
There’s a New York Times piece on Springsteen that confirms he is indeed pruning verses and whatnot from songs to fit his allotted 12 minutes of halftime. An interesting piece, even if most of Bruce’s quotes seemed canned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/arts/music/01pare.html
One more reason to not watch the most boring game ever of the most boring sport ever…
Thanks for posting the link to that NY Times piece, Oats. The Boss comes off like the self-important asshole I could only hope he really is. If you’re the person doing the interview and your subject says something like the following, how do you react?
Before answer the question, did The Boss have to get up from his chair and walk over to a podium? Who talks like that to another human?
That quote you pulled out looks like they hired Bono to write the Daniel Stern voiceovers for The Wonder Years. When did Springsteen transition from his Trying To Be Dylan phase to his Trying To Be Bono phase?
Word, Magic Man!
As Oats suggested, the quotes in that article are clearly edited together into something that does not in any way resemble a person talking.
Is Sunday here going to be a hatefest?
The Boss’ music doesn’t bother me any more or less than it usually does — his good stuff, anyway. But I’m definitely at the point when I am tired of hearing anyone — including Bruce himself — talking about his music. So I plan on watching and enjoying halftime, but I’m ready for him to take a well-earned hiatus soon, all the same.
Not a hatefest on my end, BigSteve. Unlike Oats, perhaps, I’ve got no beef with artists talking about their art, but if you’re presumably speaking to a person and not writing your own critical essay on the value of your work, speak as a person, to a person. I’ve got no beef with Bosstunes, in general, and I like enough of his songs enough. I also have no beef with any artist attempting to craft his or her own legacy, but The Boss has got to cool it, the media’s got to cool it, all the rest of the Believers out there – of any stripe, if you ask me – need to cool it. Just do it once in a while.
What’s our future, Facebooking on a 72-inch screen while we’ve got amyl nitrate capsules shoved up every orifice? The more I think about these Bossquotes the more I worry we’re fooling ourselves and we’re gonna be let down, as usual, in due time. “We’ve”…”won.” “We’ve” elected Obama. A change is gonna come. The Boss can feel his post-9/11 output has had much to do with our recent “victories” while the truth of the matter is that his Born to Run glory days continue to fuel the dashed dreams of all the Jersey boys and girls working in Big Pharma and corporate law firms. What’s some 20-year-old doing getting psyched up enough to Twitter a link to the latest YouTube clip of Bossman singing in front of a robed African American choir when this young American could be doing something/anything more useful? I’m talking about my own old self too. Just get on with the anthems, Bossman, and stop fooling yourself. Stop wasting the media’s time as it continues to try to fool me. I think the guy is pretty cool for a major superstar whose work doesn’t interest me that much – and I even think he’s sincere in his mission to make BIG STATEMENTS. I find it all slightly touching, but come on, The Boss and his E-Street Band are all about The Power and Glory of Rock ‘n Roll. He talks as if he spends his free time huffing the American spirit, like he’s burning Jefferson’s hair under glass. “Rosalita”! “Born in the USA”! “Born to Run”! “Glory Days,” baby! “Badlands”! Not because we think you’re speaking to our Nation’s Soul, Boss, but because you’re making us feel a little less dead. Save your Nebraskas and Tom Joads for that rare Charlie Rose appearance. Now get out on that stage and knock ’em dead for 12 minutes!
Set List
1. “Larry Queen of Arizona”
2. “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” with Drew Brees
3. “I’m Goin Down” with the Arizona Cardinals singers
4. “Born to (Stop the) Run” with James Harrison
5. “Cover Me” with Larry Fitzgerald
The problem of scale and ambition raises its head here sometimes. Rock nerds like us tend to favor pop that isn’t popular, stuff that has no chance to affect the culture at large and doesn’t try. Artists on the romantic/heroic end of the spectrum are easy to make fun of, but I’m glad there are people out there who are thinking big, even though, or maybe because, that approach is not part of my personal makeup.
Bruce’s problem is that he wants to be larger than life and also the guy next door, also known as the working class hero dilemma. It’s a source of tension that cannot be resolved, and it’s going to rub some people the wrong way. I also think that people who grew up anywhere near New Jersey have a hard time taking a balanced view of Bruce because of exposure to his rabid fans. I wonder if Bono has the same problem.
BigSteve, that last paragraph’s fairly representative of my reaction to him, having grown up in New Jersey, but I also don’t really like the musical choices he makes much either. I’ll admit that my dislike is inversely related to the amount of love he gets for what he does. In fact, if somebody really went off on him, I’d find something nice to say, like, I saw him introduce the Swingin’ Neckbreakers and it was a cool thing for him to do.
OK, I skimmed this and maybe it’s been said..but I think he’ll squeeze out at least one track from the new album. Probably one in the middle so he can push some new product.
Here are some more prop bets.
Over/under:
Number of bandanas on stage: 1 1/2.
Maximum number of singers crowded around one mic at any time: 3.
Number of different songs he touches on in his 12 minutes: 6.
Number of hats on stage: 3.
Total count of everyone in the band: 10.
Football related: how many times will we see Warner’s wife in the stands? 3.
I’m glad to see the Boss doing the Superbowl Halftime Show, now all the culture I don’t want to witness will be in the same place at the same time. I hope Bruce rips off Miami Steve’s shirt to reveal his pasties.
Why will he definitely do “Glory Days”, a depressing baseball song about one’s current state of lameness? Is it a metaphor for the current economic situation?
Was anyone else as turned off to The Boss as I was with that post 9-11 Ted Koppel interview? The one where he quoted some Joe The Plumber screaming across some Thunder Road to our hero “Where are you? We need Ya Man!”? “So he want home and picked up his guitar and began to write…”. I think it was the only time I saw Ted Koppel in denim.
Super Bowl Sunday does make for a great time to go to the movies though.
BigSteve said “Bruce’s problem is that he wants to be larger than life and also the guy next door”.
I think that’s a true statement but I think it also downplays the reason that he remains so massively popular, that is, he has achieved to a greater extent than any other musician I can think of, both those roles. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk. Most superstars don’t even try, don’t want to try.