This is old news, but let's dredge it up anyway. A few days after the Super Bowl, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune ran a blog stating that the E Street Band made use of recorded music at its Super Bowl halftime show:
The Super Bowl has routinely required performers to tape their performances in advance of the broadcast. The performers have the option to sing live, but are encouraged to use the backing track to avoid technical glitches.
"The Super Bowl performances are all on tape," said Hank Neuberger, a Grammy winning producer who is supervisor of the broadcast audio for the Grammy Awards telecast.
The E Street Band going through the motions? Huh? What?
Surprisingly, the story didn't go much beyond the blog and seemed to be pushed under the turf. But, interviewing E Street guitarist Nils Lofgren recently, I couldn't help but ask him about that contention. I was surprised to hear something other than a vigorous denial.
"Yeah, that's a tough one," he said, when I brought up the blog. "I was playing live the whole time. We rehearsed for days and kind of like... regularly ... it's a part of that TV thing. And this is the most extraordinary TV show I ever did. There were like 10 producers, all these huddles with management. As best as I can see, what I played live is what I heard on TV. I can't promise it wasn't something I played two days earlier, but it sure didn't look like it to me. That's one of the nice things about being in a band - I'm not the bandleader, so while all the mangers and people are trying to grab Bruce in a side room and have meetings, I just keep doing what I'm doing unless I'm asked to do something different."
Lofgren mentioned soundchecking in the rain and Bruce taking a spill off the stage. Then, he added, "We played those songs for 40 years. I've been in the band 25 years, so it looked like what we played to me."
Backroom meetings. Something that they played two days earlier... hmmm.
Whatever the case, it was a great halftime show and, hey, the Steelers won!
See the Sunday paper for the whole story on Nils.
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Posted
May 13 2009, 12:32 PM
by
Scott Mervis