Tribute to Prince upstages pop singer
Justin Timberlake was upstaged by an artfully arranged lighting effect and a video of a revered musician as he performed at the Super Bowl LII halftime show Sunday in Minneapolis.
Dressed in a mottled threepiece suit with an orange bandanna around his neck, the pop rocker and his populous band-slash-fan club, the Tennessee Kids, ran through a medley of greatest hits. JT danced and sang seamlessly from song to song, such as “Mirrors,” “Rock Your Body” and, of course, “SexyBack” before the singer sat at a grand piano in front of a projected image of Prince to sing the late Minneapolis native’s “I Would Die 4 U.”
In the middle of the song came an aerial shot of the stadium, which seemed like a miscue for a second, until the image of Prince’s famous glyph emerged from street lights around the stadium. It was the highlight of halftime.
Timberlake faced an uphill fight before he decided on the color of his bandanna. His latest album, “Man of the Woods,” has elicited collective yawns from critics. And many on social media were still holding him to blame for that “wardrobe malfunction” with Janet Jackson during the February 2004 Super Bowl. In fact, #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay was trending all day on Twitter.
Compared to recent Super Bowl halftime shows, this one was pure vanilla. The crowd at home and in the stadium had heard Leslie Odom Jr., of “Hamilton” fame, offer a powerful rendition of “America the Beautiful,” as well as Carrie Underwood, recovered from a devastating fall in her home, displaying some hip-hop cred with a performance of “The Champion.” And then there was Pink, ailing with the flu and pulling a lozenge out of her mouth just before pretty much nailing the vocally treacherous national anthem.
There were some nice visual effects with Timberlake’s take on “Mirrors,” and he even went into the stands at one point, albeit seeming to labor up the stairs.
But, really, in the end, the night belonged to the glyph. David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook. Email: dwiegand@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV