BIG GAME BIG SOUND
The secrets behind the Super Bowl halftime show
Sound engineer Patrick Baltzell designed the audio for the Super Bowl halftime show for the first time in 1998, and in that year and the five that followed it all went great. Fans in the stadium could clearly hear performers such as Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder or Phil Collins and U2, and the millions and millions of viewers watching on television never missed a note.
But in 2004, when Super Bowl XXXVIII was headed to Houston, Baltzell realized he had a problem. Reliant Stadium’s shape and P.A. system produced a notoriously muffled sound, and the Texans’ owner and the NFL refused to let any fan’s view of the stadium video screens be even partly blocked by the kind of powerful temporary speakers Baltzell normally employed. “It was a disaster,” Baltzell said at a panel titled “Super Bowl Sound: When the World is Watching” at the NAMM Show in Anaheim recently. “You couldn’t understand a single lyric.” He figured he’d go home to Los Angeles and wait for the inevitable phone call: “‘Well, you had seven Super Bowl shows but we’ve got to get a better sound designer,’ ” Baltzell said he imagined it would go. “I was pretty despondent.” And then, in the final minutes of the halftime show, “a miracle happened for me,” he said. “Janet Jackson was the closer, and all of a sudden my career was saved.” That’s right, when this year’s halftime performer Justin Timberlake pulled off part of Jackson’s costume and — horrors! — most of one breast was exposed, suddenly the NFL and broadcaster CBS had
much, much bigger worries, headaches that only compounded when the start of the third quarter was delayed by a faux referee who ran onto the field, stripped and danced and ran around the field until a New England Patriot knocked him off his feet and security gingerly grabbed him.
Baltzell’s run as the Big Game’s sound designer is now up to 20 years — XX years if you’re counting in Super Bowl numbers — from Super Bowl XXXII at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego in 1998, when the halftime show was a salute to Motown’s 40th anniversary, to Super Bowl LI at NRG Stadium in Houston where Lady Gaga leaped off the roof to launch into her performance.
During the panel, Baltzell shared stories both about the technical requirements of putting together a miniconcert seen by more than 100 million TV viewers to anecdotes about some of the best and worst performance moments he witnessed from his consoles tucked into different parts of the stadiums.
In the early days, he noted, the halftime show was no big deal, marching
bands, mostly, and then somewhat cheesy entertainment by troupes such as Up With People.
“Look how far we’ve come,” Baltzell said by way of introducing a clip of Beyoncé’s performance at Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, a show after which the power went out inside New Orleans’ Superdome, delaying the game for half an hour or so.
“The rumor circulated for awhile that it was the halftime show that took the power out,” Baltzell said.
“Trust us, we did not. We were aware of the power problems and a day before got generators, so the show was off the grid.”
What comes off seamless in the stadiums and on the broadcasts actually takes months of preparation, he said. In June before the following year’s Super Bowl he normally visits the stadium to check out the physical layout in order to start designing the sound. In August he typically returns to check that every speaker and piece of sound equipment permanently
installed in the venue is working properly.
In September, after the halftime show performer is announced, Baltzell said he will start working with his or her team to make sure that what they want to accomplish can also work within the limits of the stadium and the technical side of the sound design.
“Those of you who know Prince, he’s one of the particular artists about sound,” Baltzell said of working with the late icon on Super Bowl XLI in 2007. “His team said, ‘We’re not using your little carts’ ” — typically Baltzell used 16 or 18 carts stacked with big speakers around the perimeter of the field — “it needs to be big towers around the stage.”
The NFL quickly nixed that idea for the time it would take to set up speaker towers — the entire stage and sound system has to be pieced together in six or seven minutes tops — as well as the way they would block views of the stage.
“Finally Prince said, ‘As long as we can get 105 decibels all the way to the top seats we’ll consider the speaker carts,’ ” Baltzell said. That was accomplished and the result was a spectacular show, his favorite of all 20 he worked.
Other fun factoids he shared about his 20 years on the sound console and even before included:
The Rolling Stones insisted that all of their instruments be live. In every other case only the singers and soloists are live, the drummers and other musicians play along to a pre-recorded track.
There have been occasional wobbles during National Anthems, including Jewel in 1998 deciding to lip sync to the recording made during the dress rehearsal. Because she’d never before used in-ear monitors, and refused to do so at the game, she became hopelessly lost almost immediately during the actual number.
Only one Super Bowl halftime performer was ever paid: Michael Jackson in 1993 asked for a $1 million contribution to his Heal The World foundation.
Baltzell, who has won six of the 21 Emmy nominations he’s received for outstanding sound mixing for a variety show or special — including three wins for his regular gig as the sound mixer for the Academy Awards — decided to hand off the Super Bowl job to his assistant for the last seven years. But while he had expected to finally watch the game and the halftime show like anyone else his in-demand services and failure to double-check his calendar nixed that idea.
“This is really crazy,” he said. “I was planning on going to this really neat party out in West Hills with my wife. Then I found out without thinking I took a job at the Beverly Wilshire.”
He’ll be setting up the sound for the AARP The Magazine’s 17th Annual Movies for Grownups Awards, which will be taped on Monday and broadcast on PBS on Feb. 23, though he said that if he works fast he might still be able to catch the second half.