With the Buccaneers and Chiefs playing this year’s Super Bowl, tensions were high, leaving people at the edges of their seats in desperate anticipation. The game itself did not inspire too much excitement, however, as the Chiefs stumbled across the field like six-year old children trying on heels for the first time.
This year’s big game left much to be desired from the Chiefs – and unfortunately, the halftime show was not able to save the night.
While The Weeknd’s performance spoke compellingly of his story and experiences, but overall, the performance was nowhere near Super Bowl-worthy.
Given the chaotic nature of this year’s Super Bowl, perhaps an equally ill-coordinated halftime show makes sense. The themes that The Weeknd hoped to portray in the show are apparent – as he sang “Can’t Feel My Face,” he hobbled around an extremely well lit maze, zooming in and out of focus, literally acting as though he could not feel his face.
To say that Twitter had a field day with this is an understatement. Memes like “what my microwave sees” and “my teacher trying to figure out how to change the zoom settings” took Twitter by storm, all featuring a close up of The Weeknd’s confused face.
Unfortunately, the performance’s low points do not end there.
For his closing, The Weeknd makes his way to the field with hundreds of plastered look-alikes, most likely a representation of the time he got plastic surgery. They all gather to dance to “Blinding Lights,” with a choreography that was as winceworthy as it was chaotic.
His clones dance around, leaning in, before they all broke into freestyle, providing a disordered rave-like appeal to a usually well coordinated performance. That is, till the end, where all his clones appear to drop to the floor and The Weeknd is the only one left standing.
Overall, the performance itself is poorly executed, and to the average audience, it seems that The Weeknd put it together haphazardly. The production quality was low, and The Weeknd was stuck with a mic that made it nearly impossible to hear him.
On a more redeeming note, the themes that The Weeknd attempts to portray in this performance are beautiful. He wears the same red suit he donned for the MTV music awards and at the American Music Awards, where his face was bandaged post surgery.
The Weeknd used this performance to symbolically develop a story that features him and the struggles he has had to face in the past.
Unfortunately, the contrast created by the poetic character development and song lyrics featuring drugs and meaningless sex did not sit well with the audience, and left them just as confused as The Weeknd appeared while performing “Can’t Feel My Face.”
Next time, maybe save the soulful performance for a different event, The Weeknd. And turn up that gosh darn microphone. The Super Bowl is not about personal struggles, it is about fun.