GLAM GAGA’S SUPER SHOW!
No, Lady Gaga didn’t dish out any political controversy at her halftime show at NRG Stadium in Houston. You just had to settle for 15 of the sexiest minutes in Super Bowl history. Scuttlebutt swirled all week that the pop provocateur would say something antiTrump — but let’s face it, that was never much of an option. This isn’t a concert or even the Grammys, where there’s plenty of leeway for controversy. Super Bowl halftimes are thoroughly vetted, rehearsed, and partly pre-recorded, making going off-script a near-impossibility. Gaga did open the set with a little inclusive patriotism, doing Woody Guthrie’s anthem “This Land is Your Land.” But Guthrie probably never imagined anyone tumbling clear off the stadium roof just after, which Gaga did as the music segued into “Poker Face.” She stayed aloft during most of that tune but still looked impeccably glamorous. “Born This Way” not only clicked as state-of-the-art pop, but there was no change in its lyrics’ references to bisexuality and creative individuality. You wanted something subversive, there it was.
She still had enough breath to do a lovely piano ballad, “Million Reasons,” which had an obviously live vocal — not always a given at the Super Bowl — complete with a greeting to her mom and dad. And the stops were once again pulled out for the closing, “Bad Romance,” which found Gaga exchanging flirtatious dances with the male and female dancers onstage, just before a bunch of climactic pyrotechnics.
This also had to be the debut of football outfits — with bare midriffs and shoulderpads for everyone — as stage gear. You’re allowed to get only so edgy at the Super Bowl, and Gaga pushed the outside of the envelope about as far as it would go. The next old-school rock guys who play the Bowl are going to have a lot to live up to.
As for Luke Bryan’s earnest reading of the national anthem, we’ll give it a five on the Whitney Scale: Maybe half as good as Whitney Houston’s classic rendition in 1991, but miles ahead of Christina Aguilera’s botched-lyric fiasco in 2011.