Prince's Super Bowl Halftime Show Press Conference Was Better Than Most Actual Halftime Shows
Prince famously played the Super Bowl Halftime Show back in 2007. He turned in a memorable performance in the rain at Dolphins Stadium during intermission of the Indianapolis Colts - Chicago Bears game that featured the long-awaited Peyton Manning - Rex Grossman showdown. The only thing that approaches his halftime show performance may be his press conference from earlier in the week.
Since tomorrow is Rihanna’s presser for her Super Bowl halftime show let’s remember when Prince did his and instead of answering questions he busted out a 12 minute show for the media pic.twitter.com/wDEc4jBtRx
— Wu-Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) February 9, 2023
After a lengthy introduction from producer Don Mischer, Prince's band took stage. Prince, with a guitar hanging over his shoulder, began things by saying, "Contrary to rumor, I'd like to take a few questions right now." As someone started to ask him a question he launched into Johnny B. Goode.
Prince and the band proceeded to play a 10-minute set without taking a single question and left. It was both the best press conference and Halftime Show performance in the history of the Super Bowl. You can watch it in its entirety right here.
The actual performance Halftime Show performance is not embeddable, but you can watch it on YouTube. You might notice that during Purple Rain a giant sheet goes up with Prince playing his guitar behind it. If you're thinking, hey that kind of looks like an Austin Powers bit, well, people also thought so at the time.
There was a brief newscycle about the phallic nature of his guitar shadow. You can fittingly read the original Associated Press story about it on FOX News.
A number of bloggers have decried "Malfunction!" — including Sam Anderson at New York magazine's Daily Intelligencer. Daily News television critic David Bianculli called it "a rude-looking shadow show" that "looked embarrassingly rude, crude and unfortunately placed."
This was just a few years after Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction so people were still on edge. Luckily everyone has calmed down in the last 15 years so we won't have to worry about complaints about Rihanna being too sexy.