He won't back down - or have a wardrobe malfunction: Tom Petty plays the Super Bowl. Photograph: Roy Dabner/EPA
Ever since I heard that the BBC were going to be showing the Super Bowl and were very excited about it, I made a promise that I was going to stay up, for once, and watch it. After all, it's one of the biggest events in US television, and since I watch so many other big American things I thought I should probably give it a go, for sake of deeper cultural understanding.
Also, I understand the half-time show to be a big deal in which there are occasional and terribly exciting escaped nipples, so I thought I should definitely stay up for that, in case something newsworthy happened and I could get on the case good and early. I don't know anything about American football, I must admit, but thought I should probably not let that stand in the way. As we all know, you can watch other things, Masterchef, Strictly Come Dancing or Parliament Live TV and not understand the exact rules of the game or how one team scores points against the other, and it's still all terribly enjoyable to watch. Well, to varying interpretations of the word "enjoyable", obviously.
Anyway, I did. Watch. And kept notes in case you missed it and wanted to catch up on the excitement of it all:
10.50 onwards: There is pre-match chatter with some people.
The winner of last year's American Idol - Jordin Sparks, sings the National Anthem. The American national anthem, sorry, in case you were confused.
Conversation continues in between presenter and pundits. Meanwhile, there's a tinny but incredibly loud rendition of rock music bouncing around behind the commentators. Either the back of that there studio is open to the stadium, or someone's standing under the BBC boom with some oversized and even-more-leaky-than-usual iPod headphones. I suspect it's the former, though I prefer the mental image of the latter.
11.30: Play has begun!
11.30 and a half: Oh. It seems to have stopped.
11.31: It has started again!!!
11.31 and a tiny bit: I'm not sure if it's like athletics where they bang the starting gun, and if someone does a fault they have to stop and start again. Because if it is, there's someone going wrong A lot. Fool.
11.45: They have finished for a little break while some of the players are excused for toilet breaks and others are brought on to cover for them, I think. Apparently the Giants are doing awfully well, or at least better. Where are the cheerleaders?
I have just been told that they do not come on until the half-time show. This is not until 1, which is apparently "after the first two quarters, which are about quarter of an hour each, and will take about an hour and a half to play". Well, um, all righty then....
00:25: In the commentary box, a very helpful man is trying to explain the rules of American football by comparing them to the rules of Rugby league - similarities, differences etc. Bugger. I always knew I should have learnt the rules of rugby for some reason. I just never knew why. It was for this moment. Meanwhile, they keep mentioning the half time show, with special reference to Tom Petty, who I am guessing is playing some small part in the proceedings.
00:45: It is almost time for the half time show! I am very excited.
01.00: The nice men are talking about the game we've just been watching, and much more about the fact that the NFL is coming to London in October. In the meantime, we can see there are flashes going off all over the stadium. So there must be something happening out there, no? I want to see that, not talk about a game that's not happening for eight and a half months and which I won't understand when it does. Half-time show! Give us half time show! I want cheerleaders and Janet Jackson unsheathing her metal nipples by mistake!
01.05: And I get? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
01.15: You know, never having been bothered to stay up for it before, I had always imagined that the "half-time show" would be somewhat like the opening ceremony of the Olympics. You know, with lots of flash pyrotechnics and people in identically coloured jumpsuits moving in carefully stage-managed ways to create images of, you know, ski jumpers and giant coloured rings and things? Or even just with people parading in silly hats, and some dancers - maybe a couple of hundred, and some children singing and doing a little routine that somehow represented the future of the world. Either would be fine, although to be fair, I was expecting a little of both, with added cheerleaders and marching bands.
It turns out that half-time at the Super Bowl is far more like a really short Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert than I was ever expecting.
Which is lucky, I suppose, because if it was any longer, I wouldn't have known any of the songs.
01.18: Man, I can't believe we're having to watch these commentators and their "memories of superbowls gone by" rather than the adverts that everyone talks about being such a huge part of the experience. I mean. I understand that there might have been a bit of an outcry if the BBC had shown five minutes or more of really expensive American adverts, but, you know, they could have fuzzied out the logos? Maybe?
01.20: They're still talking. I imagine that they'll do this for a while, and then they'll come back when the adverts stop in the US, and there'll be some gymnastic cheerleading action - like in Bring it On, and then there'll probably be some kind of large band of people with piccolos and drums and braces and feathers in their hats, and they'll all march in formation - I've seen all the films, and know it to be so.
01.23: Oh. They've started playing American football again. Everyone seems very excited about this. Like it's a good thing. Like it's what they came for. Like they haven't turned up for the half time show expecting lights, flashes, flips, giggles, surprises, excitement, bells and whistles ... and ended up with several middle-aged musicians playing songs that you last heard on Jeremy Clarkson's Hot Tracks For Motorways: IV.
Like, perhaps, they're here for the sport and not the spectacle. Well good on them. I, meanwhile, am going to bed, disappointed.
(And can I just say, for the record, that Tom Petty didn't even get his nipple out. Not even once)
Oh, and the 'game' apparently got much more exciting after that. Apparently. Bother.
