Shaboozey's Thanksgiving Halftime Show – What You Didn't See on TV

The Detroit Lions won on Thanksgiving – and so did Shaboozey, who was the halftime starter for the first of three National Football League games on Thursday.

The nearly seven-and-a-half-minute performance included a medley of three tracks from the six-time Grammy-nominated country singer-rapper's latest album, Where I've been is not where I'm going – “Last of My Kind,” “Highway” and, of course, “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” are currently tied for the longest running No. 1 song on Bulletin board 100 in 19 weeks. Shaboozey, wearing a Lions varsity for the occasion, was accompanied by his touring band as well as 10 local dancers on stage choreographed by Fatima Robinson, with Lions cheerleaders on the field in front of the stage and a crowd of 500 volunteer fans behind. the.

“Our goal is to be able to bring artists and music that we think will resonate with a broad audience, with families, and also try to be as culturally relevant as possible – I don't know if that's true of any artist more now by Shaboozey,” said Seth Dudowsky, NFL head of music Bulletin board after Thursday's performance. He said the league began considering Thanksgiving halftime performers near the start of the current season and chose Shaboozey around mid-September. “With the NFL of course we want to work with the biggest artists and… artists on the rise. So really, it was just the perfect timing and the perfect artist.”

Shaboozey was joined on Thursday by Lainey Wilson at halftime of the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants game in Arlington, Texas – with a surprise duet with Jelly Roll – while Lindsey Stirling did the honors for the Green Bay Packers' home game against the Miami Dolphins. at night. Millions, of course, saw the Shaboozey segment — well-received by the crowd despite the blare in parts of the stadium — on CBS as they watched the conference-leading NFC Lions roll to a 23-20 victory over the Chicago Bears . But there were plenty of viewers who didn't get to see — but Billboard did thanks to being on hand at Detroit's Ford Field…

It's not over after all

The show didn't stop when the music was done on Thursday. Instead, Shaboozey exited the stage and into the Lions sideline, where he clapped hands and posed for selfies with fans in the front row – at one point standing up to get even closer. He spent several minutes with the crowd and continued as he walked through the team tunnel, saluting a group of U.S. Marines who served as a pregame color guard, as well as filmmakers, and posing for more selfies with fans seated in the stadium's premium Tunnel Club .

Bruce Rodgers, the halftime production designer, was not surprised by the unscripted “encore.” “Having met him, I'm not surprised at all,” said Rodgers, whose Tribe, Inc. based in Salem, Conn. is gearing up for the 19th Super Bowl in February. Bulletin board. “He's just a really nice guy. When you find an artist like him who's moving up so fast in his music career, he still remembers how to be a normal person and wants to connect.”

Rogers added that Shaboozey was “so excited” about the halftime engagement and also “so nervous. You could tell he was just too excited and too nervous, but he just kept working and working, and of course when you walk into a room with 60,000 people (64,275, according to the Lions) and you're an artist like him, it just turns it on. that you need.”

Raising The Bar

Rodgers and Tribe came over from the Lions to put on the halftime show — a gig that was even more challenging, in some ways, than the Super Bowl.

“I learned how to have a show on the field in less than seven minutes and off the field in less than six — that's what we need to do for the Super Bowl,” Rodgers said. “Here I have to put it on five-and-a-half and turn it off on four, so it's even more intense. And we have a tunnel here, and this is the same tunnel that the athletes have to use. So there is a lot of coordination.”

Rogers and company took a trip to Detroit in early November to scope out the space and presented a selection of designs for Shaboozey and his team to choose from. The Tribe gang—Rodgers and eight production supervisors who regularly work with him at the Super Bowl—then trained a crew of 400 local directors and 15 local supervisors in the business. “You start and you do it in 20 minutes, and by the second day of rehearsal you're down to five minutes,” Rogers says of the scene, which was split into 10 sections and discreetly stored on the sidelines of the stadium. hidden by large square pads. “There's a certain way to build these things in front of crowds like this. We just learned techniques and how to train people.”

Thursday's performance had been preceded by two days of rehearsals, including the presence of 500 fans the evening before. On the day of the match things went smoothly, with the separate sections rolling into the tunnel and gathering until the game was over.

Getting a Kick Out of It

While Shaboozey was on stage, the Lions and Bears players and players entered the field for their usual second half preparations. The Lions' Jack Fox even warmed up in time to “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”

…And all the trimmings

Shaboozey wasn't the only big star inside Ford Field on Thursday.

Detroit native and Lions regular Eminem was in the house, appearing on the video screens during the second quarter as his “Lose Yourself” played over the PA. Metallica's James Hetfield – one of Lions coach Dan Campbell's favorite bands – wasn't there in person, but he gave a taped exhortation to fire up the crowd during the second half.

Longtime Detroiter and “old school Lions” fan Tim Allen was also at the game, visiting pre-game with his wife Jane Hajduk – a big Shaboozey fan. “We've been in Leland (Michigan) all summer, and every time ('A Bar Song (Tipsy)') everybody's dancing. She loves it.” Hajduk was quick to note, however, that “we're huge football fans and Shaboozey is a bonus. “

Allen is gearing up for the Jan. 8 premiere of his new ABC sitcom, “Shifting Gears,” about a widower who suddenly lives with his estranged daughter and her teenage children. “At my age, I know exactly what I like to do,” says Allen. “I can't believe they found a topic I liked. I always wonder what Tom Brady said to Tampa Bay when they go, “Here's the offense we're looking at”…and he says, “What I need is two slot receivers that are intermittent”… At some point the rider has to ride the horse. But I'm excited about it.”

Fellow actor and singer-songwriter Jeff Daniels was also on hand before the game, performing a Lions song – “The Curse of Bobby Layne” – during the pregame show. Daniels, who previously wrote a song called “Silver and Honolulu Blue” for the Lions' “decades of darkness,” hopes to record the new track for release in the near future.

“If I do the song right, maybe someday they'll ask me” to play for the Thanksgiving halftime, quipped Daniels, whose new independent film “Reykjavik,” about U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the leader's summit of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 in Iceland. , is expected to be released next year. Daniels headed home to Chelsea, Mich., to watch Thursday's game, but explained that the Thanksgiving game “is as traditional as turkey for Lions fans. He's just been in our lives since the beginning of time – or the NFL. It's a great day – especially if we win, which we haven't done in a long time, even with this team. So we hope today will be different.

The Lions' win was, in fact, the first time since 2016 that the team won the annual holiday game.