She had eight minutes to build a stage and twelve to fill it. Madonna put it more grandly: twelve minutes “to put on the greatest show on Earth”.
On 5 February 2012, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, she became the first woman to headline the Super Bowl halftime show alone since Diana Ross in 1996. The MDNA era was weeks away, and this was its unveiling — in front of the largest audience of her life.
An empress arrives
The theme was ancient Rome by way of a nightclub. Madonna entered on a gold throne, carried by an army of gladiators, dressed by Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy. The stage was a vast cross laid on the pitch, assembled in about seven minutes, with a fabric screen nearly 150 feet wide for the projections. Jamie King directed the creative, Cirque du Soleil co-produced, and Moment Factory turned the floor into moving light.
She opened, of course, with “Vogue”, as animated magazine covers rolled across the floor around her. It was a statement of intent: the woman who had defined the music video and the pop tour was now taking on the biggest stage American television has.
Five songs, four guests
- “Vogue” — the procession
- “Music” into “Party Rock Anthem” — with LMFAO, and a slackliner, Andy Lewis, bouncing above the stage
- “Give Me All Your Luvin’” — the new single, with Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. as cheerleaders
- “Open Your Heart” into “Express Yourself” — with CeeLo Green and four Indiana high-school drumlines
- “Like a Prayer” — with CeeLo and a choir of around 200 local singers
The ending is the part I always go back to. After all that spectacle, “Like a Prayer” brought the whole stadium down to something simple: a choir, a chorus everyone knew, and Madonna disappearing in a cloud of smoke, leaving two words lit up on the floor — “World Peace”.
Twelve minutes, five songs, and twenty-five years of pop history folded into one performance.
The numbers
Around 114 million people watched — more than watched the game itself, and at the time the biggest halftime audience ever recorded. (Bruno Mars and Katy Perry would edge past it in the years that followed.) “Give Me All Your Luvin’” climbed to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, her 38th top-ten hit, and MDNA arrived that March with the world already watching.
The critics were kind. Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker called it “joyous, unironic, openhearted” — which is as good a description of Madonna at her best as any I know.
More from the stage: Live · Every song on The Tracks
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