Even The Muppets couldn’t save the World Cup halftime show

When even The Muppets can’t save a show, you know something is going wrong. During the first halftime show of a World Cup final, FIFA opened a can of musical stars, but forgot to let those stars do something special. And while there was quite a lot of noise about this show beforehand: the halftime of the match would last longer than normal to present the musical spectacle, something that is a tradition in the United States during the Super Bowl, the final of the American football competition NFL. Big names such as Madonna, Justin Bieber, Shakira and BTS were roped in.

The most entertaining moment came when Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, musicians from the New York Philharmonic and members of the Muppet Band, including wild drummer Animal, teamed up for a version of the White Stripes song “Seven Nation Army.” The guitar riff from the song has been shouted in sports stadiums for many years: “Laaa la-la-la-la laaa laa.” Good for a smile, but also over very quickly.

The event was kicked off by Madonna, a legendary singer who recently released a great new album. However, here she did an older song in a pumped up version: ‘Music’. She was driven to the field in a cart from the catacombs of the MetLife stadium in New Jersey by former Brazilian football players Ronaldinho and Ronaldo. Ronaldo in particular seemed to enjoy it, he had a big smile on his face. But here too the fast pace didn’t help: before you knew it it moved on to the next part (The Muppets).

The K-pop group BTS then took over with a great, slightly shortened version of their hit ‘Dynamite’, without too much spectacle. Singer Justin Bieber was then introduced by Ted Lassothe fictional football coach from the comedy series of the same name played by Jason Sudeikis. Bieber only brought his acoustic guitar and then brought some peace to the halftime with his song ‘Everything Hallelujah’. He added an amended text at the end: “It’s the World Cup Hallelujah.”

Dancing and singing children

There was no time to think about the deeper meaning of that sentence, because Shakira was ready to perform her World Cup song ‘Dai Dai’, together with Burna Boy and a group of dancing children.

It was also children who were allowed to close the show, together with Chris Martin, the frontman of Coldplay who was involved in this halftime show as a ‘curator’. A new Coldplay song was sung here: ‘We Dance’. The most famous Muppet puppets Kermit and Miss Piggy also appeared here to proclaim the message of the song: love. „We believe in love” was sung. We believe in love. Something that no one can really object to, but as befits Coldplay these days, it remained very safe and general.

And so, in seventeen minutes, songs were presented quickly and without a common thread. The Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny proved that something like this can be done much better earlier this year during the Super Bowl halftime show. He delivered a layered and narrative performance that celebrated the culture of his beloved island Puerto Rico, while moving through impressive sets. Without becoming explicitly political, he still managed to incorporate a socially involved message and a subtle protest against the policy of American President Donald Trump into his performance.

None of that in this show, one that was basically forgotten in the second half of the match.