Usher at Halftime

[WolfofWords]

Usher at Halftime

I started liking Usher during the summer of 2010 when I learned to embrace pop music more as that was the radio station we listened to as we drove around for the campaign I worked for at the time. That was around when Usher’s “Oh My God” came out which remains one of my favorites of his tracks. I was excited to see Usher perform as Super Bowl Halftime shows usually have high production values and some fun spectacle. Also, as I just outlined, I really like Usher’s music overall. Unfortunately, I was initially disappointed with the performance. In a world where Usher could have easily lip-synced and gotten by, he admirably sang his songs live. The problem was that you could barely hear him at first.

As a former sound engineer, I was mortified as the mix was all jacked up and the singer’s voice was drowning in the backing track. Usher soldiered on and eventually got a different microphone which definitely helped but it was already embarrassing. Thankfully, the improvement coincided with the appearance of Alicia Keys who helped breathe life back into the performance. By the time Will.i.am, Lil Jon, and Ludacris popped up, the energy and sound were way better. It helped to have Lil Jon shouting into his microphone. It ended up being alright but this is the third time I have seen this happen. It previously happened in 2018 for Justin Timberlake and 2021 for The Weeknd. It looked and sounded like bush league.