Vincent Frank
The Bay Area-based rock group Metallica would have been the perfect option to play at the halftime of Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara.
A region that includes some of the greatest artists ever, the Bay Area could have fielded one of the best musical performances ever.
Instead, Coldplay and Bruno Mars joined Beyonce on stage. It wasn’t a terrible performance, but there seemed to be much better options out there.
And while some of the world’s great musicians have taken part in the Super Bowl halftime show in the past, Metallica has oddly been left out.
Lead singer James Hetfield seems to have a pretty good idea why.
“I can’t dance, I can’t jump around, I’m not an acrobat, I’m not a variety show, you know? We’re artists. We’re a band. We love playing songs,” Hetfield told Nikki Sixx on his Sixx Sense radio show (h/t Ultimate Classic Rock). “We’re not gonna fly through the air on a sparkly star with a unicorn.”
Well, we have to hand it to Hetfield for providing us this imagery. We’re pretty sure not a single person in this world, his wife included, wants to see Metallica’s lead singer fly through the air with a unicorn.
All joking aside, Hetfield has a really good point here. The halftime shows we’ve seen in recent years have been more about the entertainment than the music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUqn1QPRJ_0
“It’s become less about music, unfortunately, and more about just the spectacle,” he continued. “When we played for the 50th anniversary of the NFL … right here in our hometown and they didn’t have us do it … that would have been the time. Maybe that time has passed?”
The idea of the Super Bowl halftime show is to entertain the people watching the game that might not be interested in the game itself. After all, Super Bowl Sunday has become somewhat of a national holiday.
For its part, Metallica has proven itself more than capable of handling whatever might be thrown the group’s way. That was evident during its Jimi Hendrix-like rendition of the national anthem at a San Francisco Giants game last May.
One has to wonder whether the NFL is making this decision solely to focus on those casual fans. Unfortunately, it continues to impact the quality of the halftime show itself.
Not having Metallica on to perform is a prime example of this, and Hetfield wasn’t afraid to let us know that’s his stance as well.
