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super bowl 50

Beyoncé, Chris Martin of Coldplay, and Bruno Mars perform during the Pepsi Super Bowl 50 halftime show at Levi's Stadium on February 7, 2016 in Santa Clara, Calif.Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Coldplay was the headline act at Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show, but it was R&B super stars Beyoncé and Bruno Mars who delivered the sizzle for a lively, upbeat performance that paid homage to previous halftime show headliners.

While known mainly for mellow hits, British alt-rockers Coldplay amped up the energy with their upbeat hit Viva La Vida, surrounded by dancing violinists and standing on a colourfully illuminated stage floor.

The band then performed its hits Paradise and Adventure of a Lifetime before a black-leather-clad Mars, who headlined the halftime show in 2014, bounced in, singing and dancing through his hit Uptown Funk!, with producer Mark Ronson on DJ decks on stage.

But all eyes were on Beyoncé, who sang and gyrated her way through her latest single Formation – a power anthem to race and feminism that debuted Saturday.

Her Bruno Mars-partnered version of Formation was considerably lighter in tone than the video and single. The ad immediately following the show announced her Formation tour.

Beyonce and Mars joined Coldplay frontman Chris Martin for a quick re-visit to Uptown Funk!, ending on Coldplay's uplifting ballad Fix You, with images of past halftime performers including Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Black Eyed Peas.

Even for music's biggest stars, the Super Bowl halftime show is the largest stage of their careers, drawing more than 100 million viewers to the live event.

Next year, Canadian viewers might see these

From a strange creature called "Puppymonkeybaby" to a tear-inducing Audi ad, Super Bowl ads ran the gamut this year from offbeat humour to heartfelt messages.

On advertising's biggest night, Chrysler celebrated Jeep with an ad filled featuring black-and-white portraits of veterans, kids and pop icons. In Audi's spot, a depressed aging astronaut remembers his joy for life by driving an Audi sports car with his son. And in a quirky Doritos ad, a fetus in a sonogram appears to rocket out of the womb to chase a bag of chips the mother angrily tossed away.

The goal for advertisers: to stand out and win over the 114 million-plus people watching the big game on Super Bowl Sunday. With ads costing a record $5-million (U.S.) for 30 seconds this year, the stakes are high to stand out from the 40-plus advertisers and be remembered.

"Super Bowl advertisers are sticking with light themes," said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management."Last year we had serious ads about fathers and mortality. This year the ads are funny and creative."

Offbeat humour reigned with a creature called "Puppymonkeybaby" – pretty much exactly what it sounds like – in an ad for Mountain Dew's Kickstart. The ad sought to show that three great things go together, since Kickstart combines Mountain Dew, juice and caffeine.

"It's on my list of the weirdest ad of the night, but it's very catchy and people will be talking about it," said Kelly O'Keefe, a marketing professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Heartfelt messages were in abundance too. SunTrust's ad urged people to take a breath and feel better about their financial health. BMW's Mini urged people to "defy labels."

Most ads managed to avoid the sombre tone struck last year, when an ad for Nationwide about preventable household accidents bummed out many in the audience.

Security tight

Heavy security and brilliant sunshine greeted football fans as they descended on Levi's Stadium for Super Bowl 50 on Sunday.

As if it had been specially ordered by the NFL for the Golden anniversary, Mother Nature delivered perfect party weather with blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures hovering around 21 C.

The weather helped lighten the mood as thousands of fans passed through heavy security put in place following recent attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., and Paris.

Earlier in the week, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said law enforcement officials had worked with their French counterparts to learn from last year's deadly attacks in the French capital.

Those attacks included the detonation of a suicide vest outside a soccer match.

Heavily armed soldiers backed up by armoured vehicles ringed an imposing security perimeter around the state-of-the-art stadium in Silicon Valley.

"It looks like Operation Desert Storm," Matt Ciszkawski, 44, of the Bay Area said with a laugh.

Inside the security ring, bomb-sniffing dogs and law enforcement officers patrolled the complex while fans entering the stadium faced airport style security, passing through metal detectors and pat downs.

Overhead Black Hawk helicopters circled while U.S. Air Force fighter jets enforced a no fly zone.

Fans looking for last minute deals for tickets were not going to find them with the average price on resale site StubHub sitting at $4,577 just hours before the opening kickoff.

While the 17-1 Panthers entered the championship game as almost a touchdown favourite the majority of the 72,000 fans filing into Levi's Stadium were decked out in Broncos orange.

With a report from Reuters

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