Reflections from Super Bowl Sunday. Was is it all that bad?

Just got finished watching the Super Bowl. Ugh. I hate the friggin' Packers. It was like watching your best friend get beat up by Dick Cheney. In some years I actually look forward to the commercials more than I do the game. (Love that ETrade baby!) And some years, it's the music. It's always a hit or miss, the halftime show. You can have the supposed greatest Rock n Roll band in the world (The Rolling Stones), and the drunken fools Richards and Wood turn it into one of the worst halftime shows in history, unable to be saved even by Jagger (like I can watch an 80 year old dude prance around like a sex crazed chicken). Then an unassuming guy (Tom Petty) comes along and blows the roof off of the place with no frills, just an awesome band. Then there was this year.

I have to say, at first I was pretty ho-hum about the Black Eyed Peas, but after watching them live, I have to say that was one of the worst shows I have ever witnessed (save a 45 second stretch when Slash made a cameo). Hey, I like some of their stuff on the radio, Cuz tonite's gonna be a good good ni-i-ight. But live, something was bad. Really bad. The mix was off or something, and Fergie's wailing brought back memories of Linda McCartney...WHOOO!! But the whole group? Yea, they can dance, they just didn't sound like a bunch of professionals. I have to admit the light show was pretty cool, when they did give you that rare glimpse from overhead. But that's like putting a crown on the head of a pig. It's all nice and shiny, but inside you know it smells like crap. Maybe I'm too old. Too old to appreciate modern music. But to me, the Black Eyed Peas performance wasn't the musical low-light of the night. That dubious honor goes to Christina Aguillera.

I'm old fashioned when it comes to traditional songs. The Star Spangled Banner never sounds so good as when the guy from the Blackhawk's games does it. Heck I don't even know his name, but that's the point. A relatively little know man can stir your soul with his voice, but a Grammy Award winning diva butchers it so bad, she makes Roseanne Barr sound almost human. Her pace was so slow, it evoked the famous Bleeding Gums Murphey version from the Simpson's. She had more vocal inflections in one word than Stevie Nicks gets in a night. And all that was before she completely omitted one line, and messed up another! Listen. I'm a singer. I get it. I've bumbled many a line in the course of singing 40 songs in a night. But you are Grammy winner. You are in front of millions upon millions upon millions of people. You have to sing one song. One. Learn the fuckin' lines.