The Rolling Stones perform in front of 65,000 people at Sunday's Super Bowl. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/AP
A worldwide audience of 800 million people watched the Rolling Stones perform at halftime during the 40th Super Bowl on Sunday evening. Well, most of the performance, anyway: TV bosses cut out the rude bits of Rough Justice and Start Me Up.
It seems that ABC was eager to avoid a repeat of the uproar surrounding Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" episode broadcast two years ago by CBS and MTV. And the Stones appear to have been equally eager - the band reportedly agreed to the cuts. The censorship, then, was part of the performance.
Manufactured rebellion has been part of the Stones' repertoire for even longer than (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - the only song to avoid the Super Bowl censors. Before Andrew Loog Oldham took over the management of the Stones they were just nerdy R&B buffs. Cannily realising that bad-boy behaviour would sell more records, in 1964 Loog Oldham suggested they pee on an Essex garage forecourt. Cue outrage in Fleet Street, questions in the Commons demanding extra protection for the nation's morals and the birth of a new industry: what the Clash later termed "turning rebellion into money".
