Today: Mar 29, 2024

Halftime show becomes meme

Sarah SheltonContributor

On Feb. 7, three-time Grammy award-winner Abel Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, headlined the Super Bowl halftime show. 

The Weeknd started off his set with his 2018 song “Call Out My Name,” which featured a skyline and a robotic orchestra, and he sang many of his hits including “Earned It” and “Blinding Lights.” 

“I was like ‘that is so crazy,’ because he had the band in between the different layers of the skyline, and I didn’t notice them at first until I saw someone playing the violin, and I thought ‘that is so cool,’” computer science major Siddhi Suresh, a sophomore, said. 

Suresh is a fan of The Weeknd and only tuned in for the halftime show. She said she probably wouldn’t have watched it at all if it were not for his performance, because football isn’t a sport she typically watches. 

“I really liked it,” Suresh said. “I mean, he spent seven million dollars out of his pocket to make his vision come true, which is absolutely insane to me. He’s been building his persona after his album, “After Hours,” came out and it’s really interesting to see him bring that aspect to his performance. I think a lot of people were expecting it, but not to the extent that he did.” 

Communications major Alex Rice, a sophomore, said he figured The Weeknd was going to carry on this persona, but didn’t know how he was going to go about it. 

“I thought it was really cool and definitely conveyed the story he was trying to tell,” Rice said. “It was really well put together considering the times.” 

Communications major Marie Kane, a sophomore, said she was not expecting all the different setups and that the performance itself was “a lot” to take in. 

“I feel like some of the setups of his performance were a little too much, but at the same time, it went well with his music style,” Kane said. “It’s the Super Bowl, so I get it.” 

Kane mentions that when he was looking around at the beginning of the song “Can’t Feel My Face,” she knew it would turn into something on social media. 

“I was expecting a lot of memes,” Kane said. “They’re funny. There was one I saw that was like ‘when you lose your mom in the grocery store as a kid’ with him just looking around.” 

The Weeknd is the first person since Lady Gaga’s 2017 show to have a completely solo Super Bowl halftime show. Suresh said this didn’t surprise her. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Latest from Blog