One suspects Prince, who set out to create a 'global, spiritual moment,' shared in this belief.Ĭharles Coplin, the NFL's former Head of Programming, met with The Purple One in November of 2006, months before the show. With the exception of Jackson's 1993 performance, the inherent potential of the show as a rare occurrence of collective American exultation had gone mostly unrealized-hundreds of millions watch, and yet year after year the extravaganza is less a cultural touchstone than an expensive, highly-produced clunker. Thereafter everyone from Diana Ross, U2, the Stones, McCartney, Aerosmith, and NSYNC tried to match the earth-shattering showmanship of that 12-minute set, but it was Prince, in 2007, who shifted the paradigm, bringing the spectacle to its true apotheosis. In 1993, when Michael Jackson burst through the bespoke stage at the Rose Bowl and stood motionless for all of 90 seconds, the howls of more than 98,000 fans washing over him, the modern spectacle of the Halftime Show was invented. And that guy Prince.' I reckon the only song of his I knew was 'Kiss,' but I insisted anyway. 'No,' I apparently told him, 'I want to see the second half. The Southeast Regional Climate Center estimated that, from start to finish, almost an inch fell that day, enough to prompt my dad to ask, just before halftime, if I wanted to watch the second half at a friend of a friend of a friend's house on Star Island, that sumptuous archipelago just west of South Beach.

In our two seats in the upper deck of Miami's Hard Rock Stadium, a steel beam equipped with stadium lights hung directly above us, ensuring that with every wind gust a flume of rain unloaded on our heads, soaking the one-dollar yellow ponchos we bought in the parking lot. I was just psyched to be there, bathing in the purple rain. It behooves me, now, to admit I had no sense of the magnitude of such an occasion, no understanding of Prince's legend, and little notion of the privilege it was to see him, or a Super Bowl game, live. I unceremoniously burned my Peyton Manning jersey in the fireplace and decided to root for the Bears. My dad had scored nosebleeds to the big game, in which I had no vested interest, since the Colts had beaten the Ravens three weeks earlier. I was a fanatical, 11-year old Baltimore Ravens fan. That's because, in 2007, the Super Bowl was all about Prince. Little of this, of course, would make it into a history textbook, or even an NFL anthology.

Prince purple rain super bowl