Adam Levine Saves Super Bowl Halftime Show by Taking His Shirt Off

I went into watching the Super Bowl Halftime Show knowing that it was going to be a snooze fest. I had a similar feeling before Justin Timberlake’s last year and anything that Miramax used to shove down The Academy’s throat (Will & Grace joke).

Advertisement

Maroon 5 has always been one of those bands that’s above Nickelback but below Metallica. Meaning that they aren’t awful but aren’t legendary. Just in the middle. Not sure if that’s a good place to be, as you have to wonder what sort of legacy they’ll have 20 years from now, but they’ve made a career out of it and it was enough for them to do the halftime show at Super Bowl 53 on Sunday, February 3.

There weren’t really any scenarios that was going to make their performance super memorable and something you’ll want to talk about for weeks to come. Something that the NFL has done a remarkable job at over the past couple of years (for the most part) is pick artists that will make you glued to your seats from beginning to end. This wasn't one of those years.

The 2010 decade alone brought us memorable halftime shows by Madonna, Beyonce, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga. They also brought us Coldplay, Black Eyed Peas and Katy Perry. All are great artists in their own rights, yet some really succeeded and others didn’t on the SB halftime stage. It’s sort of like how RuPaul’s Drag Race is: some queens are great IRL but not on RPDR, and some are the opposite.

Maroon 5’s show was safe. That’s it. They clearly weren’t the first choice, as other artists like Rihanna and Jay-Z turned down offers due to the NFL/Colin Kaepernick situation for their own justifiable reasons. So this was what we were left with, and Adam Levine and co did what they could during an equally boring Super Bowl.

The set started with two of their songs before transitioning into Travis Scott being introduced. Travis to me is talented but isn’t big enough of a talent to do something like this just yet. He exited, Maroon 5 continued and then brought Big Boi from Outkast out on stage. I would’ve been in heaven if the entire show was Outkast given that I’m a huge fan and am fully aware of what they would bring to a night like this.

Advertisement

Big Boi finished and all we were pretty much left with was Adam taking his shirt off and finishing with “Moves Like Jagger”. Where’s Christina Aguilera? She would’ve at least helped with this s**tshow of a night given that the Grammy winner helped turn that song into a number one single. Cardi B also didn’t take the stage for “Girls Like You”, but she told the world she wasn’t going to days ahead of time.

So we are left with a halftime show that is memorable for one reason: Adam shirtless. Which we’ve seen before. Last year all I remember from Justin’s halftime show was him running into the audience and taking a selfie with a fan. Back to back years of nothingness is not a good thing, so here’s hoping that the NFL can get their s**t together on many levels outside of picking a performer so that the 2020 halftime show is better than what’s been presented for a while now.

This post was created by one of our Contributing Writers and does not reflect the opinion of Instinct Magazine or the other Contributing Writers when it comes to this subject.