Carlos Santana Wanted to Play the Super Bowl Halftime Show
At one point at halftime during CBS' coverage of Super Bowl 50, Carlos Santana was shown playing guitar while highlights from the game's first half rolled. But if Santana had had his way, he and other famous San Francisco rock bands would have performed during the halftime show instead of Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars. Today (Feb. 9), he penned an open letter to the network and the National Football League about it.
"Dear NFL/CBS," he wrote on his Facebook page. "I would like to take this opportunity to thank you both for including me as a part of your Super Bowl entertainment. I do feel compelled to point out to you that the halftime show should have included some of the local iconic bands that the world would have loved to see perform. Bands like Metallica, Steve Miller, Journey and yours truly. We would have rocked the halftime hhow and done the S.F. Bay Area proud. This is just an invitation for you to consider iconic bands as part of your halftime entertainment. Real live music, real live vocals, and give the audience real live chills."
Journey signed on with Santana. They shared his post and added a caption of their own. "Thank you, Carlos, and yes we would have all rocked it!"
Santana has never played the Super Bowl's halftime show. The closest they got was the pre-game concert before Super Bowl XXXVII, which, coincidentally, also featured Beyonce. That game took place at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.
Metallica were part of the weekend's festivities, performing a sold-out concert at San Francisco's AT&T Park, which they streamed for free on their website, the night before the game. Acknowledging that they probably didn't have the dynamic the NFL was looking for, they created the hashtag #TooHeavyForHalftime.
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