{"id":481666,"date":"2019-02-01T07:30:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T14:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=786791"},"modified":"2019-02-01T07:30:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T14:30:20","slug":"flashback-bruce-springsteen-and-the-e-street-band-rock-the-super-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/flashback-bruce-springsteen-and-the-e-street-band-rock-the-super-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Rock the Super Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-84634749W.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"\/><\/div>\n<p>The e-mail that the National Football League had been awaiting for years finally arrived a few days after 2008\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/super-bowl\/\" id=\"auto-tag_super-bowl\" data-tag=\"super-bowl\">Super Bowl<\/a> XLII. On his train commute home, Charles Coplin, then the NFL\u2019s head of programming, saw a notification pop up on his BlackBerry \u2014 a message from Jon Landau, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/bruce-springsteen\/\" id=\"auto-tag_bruce-springsteen\" data-tag=\"bruce-springsteen\">Bruce Springsteen<\/a>\u2019s manager.<\/p>\n<p>As Coplin read, stunned and thrilled, Landau complimented Coplin and his colleagues on the halftime show, which featured Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and expressed interest in Springsteen doing one himself. \u201cWhen I got the note, it was, \u2018Wow, they actually like what we do and they\u2019re actually interested,\u2019\u201d Coplin recalled to <em>RS<\/em> in 2009. \u201cIt was one of the <em>good\u00a0<\/em>e-mails.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The result of that exchange was Springsteen and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/the-e-street-band\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-e-street-band\" data-tag=\"the-e-street-band\">the E Street Band<\/a>\u2019s first-ever halftime show, part of Super Bowl XLIII on February 1st, 2009. During the set-in-stone 12 minutes allotted for the performance, they tore through \u201cTenth Avenue Freeze-Out,\u201d \u201cBorn to Run,\u201d the title song of <em>Working on a Dream\u00a0<\/em>and, finally, \u201cGlory Days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R06FMoT-hkk?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By then, Coplin and his colleagues had reeled in a record store\u2019s worth of classic rock for halftime shows, including Petty, the Rolling Stones, U2 and Paul McCartney; the Who would play the following year, 2010. But booking Springsteen was an elusive dream itself. \u201cIt was always the <em>one\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 the one that would be great and perfect,\u201d Coplin recalled. \u201cThey were resistant for a lot of years, but I think they thought, \u2018The Super Bowl isn\u2019t a novelty act anymore. It\u2019s a real credible place for an artist to perform.\u2019 But it was still one of those things you never thought was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By 2009, though, rock times had changed. Chains like Tower Records and Virgin had closed, and many classic-rock stations had switched to other formats. To promote new albums, rock veterans needed any promotional outlets they could get, which ranged from hawking their records on QVC (as James Taylor did in 2008) or licensing their songs in commercials (as Dylan had done, including as part of a Chrysler ad at the 2007 Super Bowl).<\/p>\n<p>For Springsteen, who released <em>Working on a Dream\u00a0<\/em>five days before the big game, the lure of playing the halftime show was also partly promotional. \u201cWe have a new album coming out,\u201d he joked at a press conference before the game. \u201cWe have our mercenary reasons, of course.\u201d Later, he told a backstage interviewer, \u201cWe want to attract people\u2019s attention. It\u2019s as simple as that.\u201d The deal between the NFL and the Springsteen camp was finalized in September 2008; per NFL rules, Springsteen wouldn\u2019t be paid, but the NFL would pay for all the production costs.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, Springsteen took to the task diligently. According to Coplin, the band \u201crehearsed over and over again.\u201d On his own website, Springsteen later chronicled how he felt before he took the large, catwalk-enhanced stage. \u201cI\u2019m somewhat nervous,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s not the usual pre-show jitters, not \u2018butterflies,\u2019 it\u2019s not wardrobe malfunction anticipation anxiety, I\u2019m talking about five minutes to beach landing, \u2018Right Stuff,\u2019 \u2018Lord Don\u2019t Let Me Screw the Pooch in Front of 100 Million People one of the biggest television audiences since dinosaurs first screwed on earth kind of semi-terror.\u2019 I feel like I\u2019ve just taken a syringe of adrenalin straight to the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Springsteen wasn\u2019t allowed to announce the set list before the live performance, but as viewers saw as soon as he and the E Street Band started their set that night at Tampa\u2019s Raymond James Stadium, Springsteen more than threw himself into the format. \u201cI want you to step back from the guacamole dip, I want you to put the chicken fingers down and turn your television all the way up,\u201d he announced as the show began, pointing into a camera.<\/p>\n<p>Those comments, Coplin said, came from Springsteen himself: \u201cHe really embraced the idea of the Super Bowl.\u201d He certainly did. Springsteen inserted a reference to the event in \u201cTenth Avenue Freeze-Out,\u201d tweaking the lyric to, \u201cWhen Scooter and the Big Man bust the Super Bowl in half.\u201d The opening line about a baseball player in \u201cGlory Days\u201d was changed to a quarterback. During a brainstorming session with executives, someone suggested a referee run onto the stage for added humor. Springsteen thought the idea was hilarious, and sure enough, a referee appeared during the climax of \u201cGlory Days\u201d and threw down a yellow flag, which signaled a game delay. Fireworks were intermittently set off, and a gospel choir joined the band for \u201cWorking on a Dream.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But perhaps the most memorable moment came during Sprinter\u2019s cross-stage slide, which became a crotch shot right into the camera. \u201cToo much adrenalin, a late drop, too much speed, here I come [camera man] Mike \u2026 BOOM!\u201d Springsteen wrote in a blog on his website. \u201cAnd I\u2019m onto his camera, the lens implanted into my chest with one leg off the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All the effort was worth it; <em>Working on a Dream\u00a0<\/em>would hit Number One on the chart, and the telecast was seen by 98.7 million viewers, then a record for the Super Bowl. While some may have scratched their heads at the thought of Springsteen playing a halftime show, he himself saw it in a larger, organic terms. \u201cThe Super Bowl has become a national experience,\u201d Springsteen said before the show. \u201cIt\u2019s an experience you have with the entire country and by extension the world. That\u2019s something \u2026 we\u2019ve been interested in that kind of conversation in a lot of different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/bruce-springsteen-e-street-band-2009-super-bowl-786791\/\" target=\"_blank\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The e-mail that the National Football League had been awaiting for years finally arrived a few days after 2008\u2019s Super Bowl XLII. On his train commute home, Charles Coplin, then the NFL\u2019s head of programming, saw a notification pop up on his BlackBerry \u2014 a message from Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen\u2019s manager. As Coplin read, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-481666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 11:28:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}