Chris Allen’s Take On The Super Bowl Halftime Show

Let me start by saying I like The Weeknd and his music, so I want to make that clear before I say anything.

Leading up to the Super Bowl, I read that The Weeknd put 7 million of his own money into the halftime show. Plus, he gets a stipend to spend on the production, so he had even more money than the 7 million he put into the production. I expected a lot, with lights dancers, surprise guests, fireworks, SOMETHING!! Some lights and a lot of him standing there singing.

I have to also complain about the sound. I am a sound person and have run sound for various productions, engineered album projects, ran the mixing board for bands and concerts, so I have some experience and an ear for sound. It sounded to me like the only thing we were listening to was the concert through on-field mics. There wasn't any good sound for the show. Nothing that was mixed for the TV only mixed for the house, (the stadium sound) and there were only 25,000 people there but millions if not billions watching on TV.

I know he spent a lot of money on lights and dancers on the field, but that was for the benefit of the stadium, not for the viewers. We only see what the cameras show us since there wasn't a lot of production to show us, they zoomed in on The Weeknd performing. So we missed the production aspect that he spent so much money on.

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It sounded lip-synced, that he was not performing. Here's a hint that he was lip-syncing, there isn't mic noise (bumps and feedback), and there wasn't a lot of breathing or odd volume for his singing. In other words, his voice was even, like it was a studio track and not a live voice.

The other thing is I wish he had a guest or two, he is a great singer and songwriter, but he is not a dynamic performer. He doesn't have a huge stage presence to keep us entertained, so he either needed a guest or really good dancers that were part of his show.

I heard so much about how it was going to be so good, and we needed it to be, the game was getting boring. We also needed it to be because of COVID we are starved for entertainment.