One of the most challenging parts of being the headliner for the Super Bowl Halftime Show is trying to stand out among a slew of legendary past performances while still creating a show that is family friendly. Katy Perry managed to do all this and more, solidifying herself as having one of the most enjoyable Super Bowl performances to date.
The show opened with Perry standing on an animatronic lion, in a fiery dress to perform Roar. She then moved on to Dark Horse, utilizing impressive graphics to make the stage look like a moving chessboard. Guest performer, Lenny Kravitz, sang a rock version of the song I Kissed a Girl. Katy then transitioned into Teenage Dream and California Girls where she interacted with dancing sharks and human-sized beach balls. Surprise performer Missy Elliott then inspired us to reminisce about the early 2000s with a few of her hit songs. Katy ended halftime with a rendition of Firework and an actual fireworks show.
The guest performances, while very good, were a little random. Katy Perry, Lenny Kravitz, and Missy Elliott? A pop star, a rocker, and a hip-hop legend? This surprisingly wasn’t the strangest collaboration the NFL created. Just last year, Bruno Mars shared the stage with The Red Hot Chili Peppers. As weird as these pairings are, I can appreciate that the NFL tries to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible but a woman with multiplatinum albums and a successful concert documentary doesn’t really need guests.
As for the wardrobe selection, it was as dynamic as the star herself. She went from fire to beach to street to sequin all within the span of twelve minutes. Jeremy Scott, a friend of Katy’s, designed her costumes with as much fun flashiness as he puts into his work as Creative Director of Moschino and his own eponymous label.
The best part of the Halftime show was how visually stunning it was. Katy took a page out of Madonna’s book and relied heavily on graphics the same way the pop legend did for her 2012 Super Bowl performance. At one point Katy Perry floated around the football stadium on a shooting star that reminded us of the one from “The More You Know” PSAs. Even if you weren’t a fan of Katy Perry’s songs, it would be hard to look away from what was happening on screen. This is a performance you could easily watch over and over again just to see if there was anything you didn’t notice during your first viewing.
Katy’s performance was as fantastic as it was because she chose to stick to what she does best — being over the top (in a good way) and being humorous. “I just hope at the end of the day that over a hundred million people are all smiling in unison,” the pop star said days earlier at her Super Bowl Halftime press conference. Mission accomplished, Katy.