Justin Timberlake covers lots of ground, pays homage to Prince in Super Bowl halftime show
As he said, there were no guest appearances – at least not living guests – but Justin Timberlake covered a lot of ground, both inside U.S. Bank Stadium and across his discography, during his Super Bowl LII halftime performance.
The performer opened with a snippet from the first single off his new album, “Man of the Woods,” a track called “Filthy,” and appeared to be on a small stage under the stands.
He came out from there onto a bridge to the field, singing and dancing to “Rock Your Body.”
Once he hit the midfield stage, Timberlake introduced his band, the Tennessee Kids, who were clad in red suits.
Timberlake, as he seems determined to do in promotion of “Man of the Woods,” was wearing a black leather jacket with fringe on the sleeves (those of us who were teenagers in the early 1990s were having flashbacks), with a denim shirt underneath that had a mountain scene printed on it.
Keeping with the country theme, he wore a red bandana around his neck, but did break costume, rocking Air Jordan 3s on his feet.
Timberlake went into a low-key version of “SexyBack,” then “My Love,” and a “Cry Me a River” interlude with him dancing. He jumped onto a lighted box to semi-sing “Suit and Tie,” but was mostly dancing with a spring-loaded tall microphone.
He was backed by a marching band, which is never a bad thing.
Timberlake went to another small stage, this one with a white piano, and sang a little bit of “Until the End of Time,” then video of Prince, the late, brilliant Minneapolis maestro, appeared on a drape that dropped from the ceiling and the two did a duet of Prince’s class “I Would Die for You.”
Timberlake wrapped with “Mirrors,” and “Can’t Stop the Feeling!,” which saw him on the move once more, this time walking up into the stands, where he was of course photographed by any and every fan nearby.
It was high-energy, and a solid performance, as you’d expect from Timberlake, though in our opinion not one of the greatest in Super Bowl history.
