Mixed Opinions For the Halftime Show

The Weeknd’s Halftime show for Super Bowl LV sparked the interest of many people. 

Abel Tesfaye, also known as three grammy winner and six grammy nominee The Weeknd, performed at Super Bowl LV on Feb 7, 2021. 

The Weeknd is a R&B pop singer who has made a few hit songs and has a diverse vocal range. He was born in Toronto, Canada and was also the third Canadian to ever perform at the Super Bowl. The Weeknd has stated that he is honored he gets to perform.

At Super Bowl LV he played many hit songs including: Starboy, The Hills, Can’t Feel my Face, I Feel it Coming, Save your Tears, Earned it, House of Balloons and Blinding Lights. 

Apparently The Weeknd contributed $7 million to make the halftime show exactly how he imagined it. He wanted to base his performance on his newest album ¨After Hours¨. 

 It is speculated that The Weeknd got to sing at the Super Bowl’s halftime show because of how versatile he is with his music. He can easily go from a slow R&B to a hype beat pop song.

The halftime show consisted of around 700 dancers and background performers. The performers all wore sparkling red blazers and white bandages on their faces with the eyes cut out. These performers wore bandages to symbolize plastic surgery and the manipulation of their faces, but these bandages also doubled as masks to help protect them from COVID-19.

They did the necessary precautions to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. They had a limited number of 25,000 people at this year’s Super Bowl and masks for everyone were required. The performers and football players all got COVID tests before the game. They also stayed 6 feet away from each other on the bleachers. 

Overall their COVID-19 precautions worked well and so far no players or performers have contracted COVID-19.

He ended the performance with his hit song Blinding Lights, the most popular of his songs in 2020. He also played some of his older hits including The Hills which was released in 2015.

There were mixed opinions when it came to The Weeknd’s halftime performance. 

The students that I interviewed at Lakeland High School said that it was fine to watch and they didn’t really care. Other students thought that it was bad and not as good as last year’s performance. 

It definitely wasn’t like Shakira´s and Jenifer Lopez’s from the year before, but there are definitely some pros when it comes to his performance. It did spark up some funny memes that are all over Instagram. 

In my personal opinion, I like the songs that he sang but the background music was too loud and you wouldn’t know what he’s singing without already knowing his songs. The performance was alright, but while he was running through the tunnel it was weird and had an awkward camera angle.

 It wasn’t the worst performance but it definitely wasn’t the best. The Weeknd’s performance overall was average.