Mercifully, The NFL Thanksgiving Halftime Performer Doesn’t Completely Suck in 2016
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Now here is something to be thankful for.
Over the last decade and beyond, it has not been humanly possible to book more godawful performers for the centerpiece of the NFL’s Thanksgiving schedule than what we’ve seen take center field during the halftime of the Dallas Cowboys’ football game. It’s like they purposely conduct a study to find who is the most dreadful performer of the day that is destined to be relegated to the dustbin of popular music history, and have them come out to do dance moves to a pre-recorded track.
Last year it was Luke Bryan, ringing in the holy season by dry humping the air with pelvic thrusts, and doing his stupid thing of pointing to imaginary friends out in the audience. Who else have we had recently? Pitbull? TWICE? Daughtry and The Jonas Brothers? Creed? Jessica Simpson? The list reads like a has-been of now washed up pop performers. There’s a few decent ones in there. I guess Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood make sense. I mean sure, this halftime performer has to be someone who appeals to a wide audience, I get that. You’re not going to book American Aquarium for this thing, though you wouldn’t hear me complaining.
But at least don’t make me hang my head in shame at the Thanksgiving table as a country music fan. You can only guess how the conversation turns after you declare your love to country to your distant cousins, and then Kenny Chesney marches out on stage looking like a human melanoma, singing yet another fucking song about getting hammered on the beach.
I’m not even some huge fan of Eric Church. My personal history with the dude has been dicey to say the least. But his most recent record Mr. Misunderstood is not half bad, and if nothing else, you feel confident that he’ll at least take the opportunity seriously and do something that doesn’t completely insult the intelligence. He’s an actual musician for crying out loud, who can play an instrument and sing live and stuff. His current single is “Kill A Word,” and if he performs that, it’s probably something we could all heed at this time.
In the late 90’s this gig was reserved for good country music artists. After all, it is in Texas. Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, and Clint Black played the first three years when the performance became the annual kickoff of the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle campaign. It would be great if this could take a turn in that direction in the coming years.
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The Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Halftime Performers Over The Years:
- 2015 – Luke Bryan
- 2014 – Pitbull
- 2013- Selena Gomez
- 2012 – Kenny Chesney
- 2011 – Pitbull
- 2010 – Keith Urban
- 2009- Daughtry
- 2008 – The Jonas Brothers
- 2007 – Kelly Clarkson
- 2006 – Carrie Underwood
- 2005 – Sheryl Crow
- 2004 – Destiny’s Child
- 2003 – Toby Keith
- 2002 – LeAnn Rimes
- 2001 – Creed
- 2000 – Jessica Simpson
- 1999 – Clint Black
- 1998 – Randy Travis
- 1997 – Reba McEntire
November 23, 2016 @ 9:56 am
These halftime shows are painful, I don’t care who you put up there. I think my sock drawer needs rearranging during this……
November 23, 2016 @ 10:39 am
Halftime shows always stink. And they have to have a big name (actually surprised Church was considered a big enough name). The list isn’t bad until after about 2010. Keith isn’t my favorite, but hard to argue he can’t play an instrument. Pitbull and Luke though……..sigh.
November 23, 2016 @ 10:51 am
Detroit had to put up with Nickleback., Meanwhile, right down the street, Bob Seger and Aretha Franklin sat home eating turkey. I would have personally paid to bring Eric Church to Ford Field from anywhere in the country if it meant I didn’t have to put up with Nickleback. Next to them, he’s Hank Williams.
November 23, 2016 @ 10:56 am
Halftime is usually when I get up and take a leak, refresh my beer, and stretch. My wife and daughter usually move in to watch the halftime show. Really don’t care who performs, but Eric Church is as good as any.
November 23, 2016 @ 11:15 am
If Creed were playing the halftime show this year I might actually break with my “sports are a complete waste of time” agenda to watch. As far as I’m concerned they’re easily in the top 5 of this rank list of performers. Clint Black too.
Side note, but I’ve read quite a few articles recently that have resumed the extremely dated Creed bashing from the early millennium. It’s strange; the band is currently a non-entity and has been since 2012, so why is it becoming fashionable once more to take pot shots? Because Scott Stapp isn’t going on about delusional CIA missions to assassinate Obama anymore? Meh.
But, that wasn’t the point of this article. It’s cool to see the Chief get more good press.
November 23, 2016 @ 12:17 pm
I actually have only seen one of these performance and that was Reba’s, which I see was the first. I really dug that song. I didn’t know they still did it.
I love Eric, but I’m getting a little bored with Kill A Word, I would much prefer he play something else. I would even take Holdin’ My Own acoustic or if he’s with his band A Mistress Named Music.
November 23, 2016 @ 12:34 pm
Agreed, though it hasn’t approached the level of some of those Chief singles. They got run into the ground. I think “Over When It’s Over” is my favorite from that album in part because it wasn’t released as a single and I didn’t get tired of it.
November 23, 2016 @ 3:20 pm
Derek… you stole my comment.
I didn’t realize these Thanksgiving halftime shows have been going on every year either. I remember Reba, too. It was just one song – What If – for the Salvation Army. I bought the single, but it was way too pop!
I was attending college that year and didn’t get to go home over the holiday because I was too broke. So I watched that game by myself.
The only other one on this list that I recall is Sheryl Crow. For some reason I remember one-nut Armstrong (why do I think he only has one nut anyways?) sitting on the sidelines with his kids while she performed.
The rest I don’t recall at all.
November 25, 2016 @ 11:02 am
He was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Don’t know if he lost it, but that’s probably why.
November 23, 2016 @ 1:13 pm
Logged in just to say CREED SUCKS.
November 23, 2016 @ 2:23 pm
You had to LOGIN to post that insight? I must be doing it wrong.
November 23, 2016 @ 2:25 pm
Creed’s My Own Prison might be the best post-grunge album ever released. It was popular to hate them because “Higher” and “With Arms Wide Open” got over-played. Both are still great songs and each Creed album is damn good from front to back. I hope we haven’t heard the last of them.
November 23, 2016 @ 3:53 pm
I remember we said as much on an Aaron Lewis article a few months back. I was hoping they’d do something for the 20th anniversary of My Own Prison, but Alter Bridge is busy into next year and Stapp just joined Art Of Anarchy as Scott Weiland’s replacement, and they’re gearing up an album for March of next year. At this point the best we can hope for is a reissue of MOP, hopefully with the indie mix and the mainstream remix in one package. At this point I’d be surprised if they did anything else together in the near (even far) future, much to the delight of the haters that haven’t moved past 2001.
November 23, 2016 @ 4:57 pm
Sweeeeet baby satan. There are sick people out there. Creed gets redemption now?? What about a Wham day? Wake me up someday.
November 23, 2016 @ 7:00 pm
“Redemption”? Where were you at when these guys sold 50 million records? Won a grammy? Set a record for the most straight number one rock hits from a debut album? Tied for the most weeks at number one with their album Weathered on the albums chart with the Beatles compilation Anthology? Not that all of this is common knowledge, but what rock have you been living under? Just because you think a band is crap doesn’t mean everybody else does. In this particular case, Creed’s haters like to pretend the band never accomplished anything just because they heard three songs on the radio and hated them. Reality check: the band sold millions of records, has millions of fans, had some of the biggest radio hits of the 1990s. Balk at that if you wish but it doesn’t change the facts. The only problem I’ve ever had with Creed is people like you acting like I don’t have a damn right to like this band and enjoy their music any way I see fit.
Feel free to draw parallels if you wish, but I do NOT have any issues praising Creed and criticizing Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, Sam Hunt or any of these other fools on country radio. As far as I’m concerned, Creed was a good band that a lot of people had a problem with (such as their frontman’s behavior and Jesus complex). These pop country artists are posers that are diluting the country music gene pool with inane lyrics and inauthentic music. Post-grunge that was sold as post-grunge is a far cry from hip hop and pop that’s being sold as country that relies on stereotypes in the lyrics.
November 24, 2016 @ 6:28 am
You might add that the guitarist in Creed, now leader of Alter Bridge, is one of the best hard rock guitarists around at the moment, and that the AB singer also fronts Slash’s solo band and was considered to front Led Zepplin (point being singers of that caliber don’t hang around with hacks too often).
November 24, 2016 @ 10:51 am
Myles Kennedy fronting Led Zeppelin, that’s one hell of a way to piss off a lot of die hard fans, and they knew it. Why it never happened.
November 24, 2016 @ 1:16 pm
@Marky Mark — Good point, but that’s a few too many degrees of separation from my central statement. Plus, I like Creed much better than AB, so there’s that. The bands aren’t THAT different but an unhealthy amount of people act like they are when it’s a difference of literally one member and a bit more metallic edge in the songwriting. But Alter Bridge tends to be respected while the former is not. That goes to show that hate against Creed is more a stigma rather than anything else. It’s the same guitarist writing the songs for both bands.
@Michael Powell — I hear that Steven Tyler was in the running for that as well. It really doesn’t matter who they might have chosen, anybody not named Robert Plant would have drawn out the torches and pitchforks with most fans, even if Plant’s voice is kinda shot. It has less to do with Myles and more to do with him not being a part of Led Zeppelin.
Example: I didn’t particularly care for his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame performance with the rest of the classic Guns N’ Roses lineup. He hit the notes but something just seemed off about the whole ordeal.
November 23, 2016 @ 5:46 pm
One, What If, Are you ready, and their cover of Alice Cooper’s I’m Eighteen. Great songs that most will never hear because they’re “Creed songs”
November 23, 2016 @ 7:06 pm
I’ve always loved the mandolin intro to “Are You Ready?” That’s definitely one of my favorite songs of theirs. Not sure if you’re interested, but a three disc compilation containing all of the band’s radio hits as well as all of their b-sides (such as “I’m Eighteen”, as well as covers of songs by the Doors), unreleased demos and live tracks was released at this time last year. It was called With Arms Wide Open: A Retrospective, and the physical version was sold as a Walmart exclusive (no exclusivity for the digital version — all of the tracks were even uploaded by the band’s official YouTube channel). Promotion for the release was non-existent so hardly anyone heard about it, even fans. If you don’t own all of those tracks already it’s a good place to start.
November 23, 2016 @ 2:32 pm
I think Church is a pretty good choice..
Funny about Creed..
Scott Stapp is playing this lil shytty bar in a even worse lil shytty city in Mass Friday.
My wife was a huge Creed fan.. I’ve seen them a bunch of times.. I already have tickets to see Sam Roberts Band on Fri, so I won’t be dragged to that.
November 23, 2016 @ 7:12 pm
Stapp seems to be doing pretty well overall, given that he’s resorted to just playing Creed songs without the rest of the band even though he has two solo albums of material to draw from. The quality of the venues notwithstanding, his ticket prices have actually gone UP since I saw him here in Arkansas last year. And he has this outrageous meet-and-greet package that costs a couple hundred. And those things sell out (of course, there’s probably only about ten or so available for each show). He’s doing fine.
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I’m sorry, Trigger. Didn’t mean for your article to devolve into a discussion about one of the ’90s most infamous rock bands rather than Eric Church or the NFL. I apologize.
November 24, 2016 @ 7:27 am
Could be worse…..at least its not Dan + Shay.
November 24, 2016 @ 12:05 pm
Call me crazy but I actually really like their newest single. If pop country sounded like “How Not To” in general, radio would be a better place. Plus, Shay actually sings like he’s a fucking dude on that song.
November 24, 2016 @ 7:58 am
I thought creed kinda lost it live after they added second guitarist
November 24, 2016 @ 1:19 pm
Really? MORE guitars caused the band to “lose it”? That’s an intriguing perspective. In what way?
November 24, 2016 @ 10:13 pm
Actually, Scott often played guitar live. They never added a second guitarist unless it was just a second touring guitarist so Scott could focus on his weird, kooky vocals.
November 24, 2016 @ 2:44 pm
What’s wrong with Creed?
November 24, 2016 @ 3:58 pm
NFL halftime shows: Reason #532 why I never watch television (NFL football itself is somewhere in the Top 10).
November 24, 2016 @ 4:15 pm
This is not one of his better performances, something seems off? My non-country fans are currently ripping him (after I’d built him up), sigh
November 24, 2016 @ 4:22 pm
Yeah, wasn’t particularly impressed. Probably still better than Luke Bryan though. It’s a tough gig.
November 24, 2016 @ 7:24 pm
He did seem a little off, out-of-tune even. Also, even if every other performer out there does it, the medley version of his songs didn’t really work for me. Nice to see Clint Black and Reba on the brief “20th anniversary” jumbotron intro, though.
November 24, 2016 @ 10:15 pm
I think his voice sounds worn out. It has me worried about this upcoming tour. I have tickets for one of the first sets of shows, so I’m sure he’ll sound fine. I thought pulling out his tribute album cut to Haggard was a nice gesture. No other big name mainstreamer would have done that. I like that despite some of his cockiness in interviews his true character always seems to surface at the best of times.
November 25, 2016 @ 9:18 am
Don’t worry about his voice, trust me. He just did an acoustic show at City Winery in Nashville and he was great. I’m a big fan, but I will completely admit he sounded off for the halftime performance. I’ve never thought he does very well in that kind of a setting though. When I heard he was peforming, I immediately felt like it might not fit him…I was right. Bummer is that now non-country fans or those unfamiliar with him have this as their impression….sigh….what can you do. I also wasn’t a fan of the song choices or the way it was thrown together. BUT it was a halftime show, and I never really think they are very good, so I’m not that surprised.
November 25, 2016 @ 6:00 am
I thought it was lacking in energy. Church seemed tired, or maybe he just wasn’t into it. It gave off the feeling of “if it wasn’t for the paycheck I wouldn’t be here”.
November 25, 2016 @ 11:28 am
Ultimately, the producers of these shows apparently feel like they have to be ultra-franetic and full of gimmicks or average Joe six pack sitting on his couch won’t pay attention. Perhaps they’re right, but on such a big stage, I think they should give the artists an opportunity to have a “moment” that people talk about years after. That’s what Chris Stapleton had at the CMA Awards in 2015. I think the American public is more receptive to hearing full songs instead of a medley, and deeper material than they’re given credit for.
It felt more like a video game than a musical performance.
November 25, 2016 @ 5:41 pm
“It felt more like a video game than a musical performance.”
Yeah, this is pretty accurate….
November 27, 2016 @ 2:58 pm
Medley or whatever, he didn’t seem to be into it. I guess the contrast with the live shows I’d seen lately is what strikes me. Last weekend I saw Karen Jonas at The Tin Pan in Richmond VA; the day after Thanksgiving I was in a dive bar in Manassas listening to a local rockabilly band whose members are all senior citizens (The Original Hot Rod Rockers); and last night I saw The Brian Setzer Orchestra at The Warner Theatre in Washington D.C.
Three very different shows, with different styles, levels of experience, and levels of fame. But one common thread: these people all plainly love what they’re doing. It shows in their faces and can be heard in their music. When I don’t see that in a musician it jumps out at me.
November 24, 2016 @ 5:08 pm
1. The NFL requires that part of these performances be pre-recorded and sampled. Today it was the rhythm section, whereas any leads and Eric’s vocals were completely live. I think the pre-recorded track threw him off.
November 24, 2016 @ 5:14 pm
These songs were exposed as the garbage they are..terrible performance
November 24, 2016 @ 9:19 pm
Definitely not one of Eric Church’s best performances but it actually represents a trend with his live performances. If you hear footage of him from his concerts his vocal performances and overall quality is much higher. But, when he preforms a song at a awards show or event, his vocal quality is much lower and he has trouble staying on key. Not sure what the reason is but it does seem to be the trend. There’s plenty of live footage of both concerts and award shows to back this up. Also, the performance suffered because he did a small bit of his more popular songs which do not represent his best work.
November 25, 2016 @ 7:13 am
He sounds off at awards shows because he’s one of the few performers who’s actually singing. The rest of them are just mouthing words.
November 25, 2016 @ 10:23 am
Half time is a good time to switch to 3/4 time and waltz on out for a beer.
November 26, 2016 @ 7:30 am
I think all these half time shows need to go back to marching bands and dogs catching Frisbees.
November 28, 2016 @ 7:34 pm
He may have had an acoustic guitar but I noticed it was slung over his shoulder quite a bit, held in place by his “Chief” strap. In fairness, I never unmuted the TV so I never heard. I had no interest in hearing it from what I was seeing and I feel confident I made the right call. Call me close minded.