Best Detroit Super Bowl Ad Ever

This glimpse of my battered, proud home town was almost too good to be true. I was sure that Eminem was going to jump up on the stage of the old Fox Theater with the choir and bust out a chorus of "Lose Yourself." But it was great to see and hear Woodward Ave. pulsing with the beat.

The Mightiest Band In The Land

From Bruce's Super Bowl journal:

The Super Bowl is going to help me sell a few new records, that's what I wanted because I want people to hear where we are today. It'll probably put a few extra fannies in the seats and that's fine. We live high around here and I like to do good business for my record company and concert promoters. But what it's really about is my band remains one of the mightiest in the land and I want you to know it, we want to show you…because we can.

Better To Get America Onto Its Feet

One joyful day amid the prevailing gloom -- friends, munchies, a great football game -- and Stephen Metcalf thinks Bruce Springsteen, at halftime in the Super Bowl, should've made like Woody Guthrie in the dust bowl:

Springsteen would have put America on its ass—its mind shortly to follow—had he strolled out with a Martin and played "The Wrestler." (And how about a nice "This one's for Danny," aka Danny Federici, the recently deceased keyboardist who was with Bruce for more than 40 years?) The national mood is sober bordering on a galloping panic. Lively as he was, I wouldn't say the Boss did much to either banish or capture it.

Pretty soon I'm going to start wondering why the media seem not to want us to cheer up. Gloomy, anxious people don't want to spend money. Hey, Stephen: Download Bruce's new CD, and then go buy a pickup truck.

Bob And B.i.ll

Pepsi's "Forever Young" ad from the Super Bowl is historically off key. Bob Dylan and hip-hop artist Will.i.am trade off singing Dylan's song. The images are of a mid-1960s going-electric-at-Newport Dylan, but "Forever Young" was released in 1974 (on Planet Waves, which he recorded with the Band), and the live version on the commercial's soundtrack sounds like it comes from the late 1970s. Still, great ad.

LiveBrucing

What was I thinking? Whenever Bruce is on TV, he does his "is anyone alive out there?" shtick, which sets up a song like "Light of Day" or, his choice tonight, "10th Avenue Freeze Out" -- a perfect choice for introducing the E Street Band to this vast audience. The extended intro with the Miami Horns (how ya doing, La Bamba?) is great stuff. I called "Born to Run" right, but who wouldn't have? He shaved a verse and then one-two-three-foured into the title song of his new album "Working on a Dream," and not the second cut, "My Lucky Day," as I unimaginatively guessed. Behind him was a gospel choir, as during the Lincoln Memorial concert kicking off the inauguration, which made this the inevitable Obamanumber. He closed with "Glory Days," one of the teenage angst songs from Born in the USA, his biggest album. Again, I should've guessed. He smoothly substituted "hail Mary" for "speedball" and goofed off his high school buddy Steven van Zandt, even getting a ref to throw them off the stage.

The set opened with an image right off the front cover of Born to Run, showing Bruce and sax player Clarence Clemons back to back. Poor Patti: For the big football game, Bruce needed to call male bonding all the way. Thus did the greatest rock and roller of all time, with an energy and athleticism that defied his 59 years, pack the majesty of a two-hour show into 12 minutes.

James Harrison...

..was born to run.

Detroit Skips Tampa

Cool "Forever Young" commercial for Pepsi featuring Bob Dylan and Will.i.am during the Super Bowl -- which reminds me of a CBS radio piece earlier in the day saying that U.S. automakers won't be advertising during the game for fear of offending taxpayers who are funding Detroit's bailout.

I'm offended they're not advertising and instead leaving the field to Hyundai, Audi, and Toyota. While I well understand the vein of American Puritanism demanding sackcloth on the dashes of our subsidized automakers, how do you sell pickups if you're not on the Super Bowl?