Toward the end, she flirted with taking this simplicity too far, as in her “Million Reasons” performance, oddly led into with a question as to whether the audience was feeling good. Even the absence of Beyoncé, a guest vocalist on “Telephone,” seemed to work in Gaga’s favor the world-encompassing pop icon who dominated two recent halftime shows and the week’s news cycle might have dwarfed the relatively humble ambitions of the act.
Gaga was smart enough, in a setting that bears endless temptations to pile on visual distractions, to actually strip down her act to the fundamentals. At its core, pop music has an uncomplicated, primal appeal-to make you dance and make you feel. Indeed, the halftime show felt like a moment for Gaga to return to the basics, and not in the way she did with her faux-roots music reinvention on last year’s album.
It was all dopey, earnest fun, an escape from tough realities studded with crystal scepters (for “Telephone”) and, gloriously harkening back to the early days of Gaga’s career, a key-tar (“Just Dance”). Both Katy Perry and Madonna-recent headliners and no slouches in the spectacle department-saved their big statements for the show’s final moments. Similarly, few in possession of a famous civil-rights anthem (in Gaga’s case, the LGBT-equality song “Born This Way,” a tune that feels less hokey now than it did upon release) would have uncorked it third in the setlist. Any singer could probably have trained enough to have pulled off Gaga’s aerial stunts, but few would have been so bold to open the show with them. Her performance began with a performance of “God Bless America” and “This Land is Your Land” that felt less substantial than the declaration of independence that followed-a pop star unbound by the usual rules of gravity, stadium safety and good sense. But perhaps the best argument against malaise at large is working hard to put forth as much quality and energy as one can.
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