On Sunday evening, during Bad Bunny\u2019s electrifying halftime performance at Super Bowl LX, a crowd of what appeared to be fewer than 200 people in an undisclosed location were treated to an alternative concert, \u201cThe All-American Halftime Show,\u201d presented by the right-wing student organization Turning Point USA.<\/p>\n
Conceived as culture-war counterprogramming for a show by a Puerto Rican mega-star who raps and sings in Spanish, and has been a vocal critic of ICE, the event featured four MAGA-aligned country stars and was headlined by Kid Rock, who made his entrance in jorts and trademark fedora. But for all the ideological outrage behind this challenge to globally popular Latin music, TPUSA\u2019s star-spangled jamboree wasn\u2019t particularly message-driven nor even provocative.<\/p>\n
It streamed on platforms including Rumble, DailyWire+, and multiple YouTube channels. Blake Neff, producer of The Charlie Kirk Show, claimed there were over 5 million live viewers on the Turning Point USA YouTube stream; as of publication time, it has been viewed over 16 million times. Shortly before going live, TPUSA announced that it would not be able to air the special on X due to \u201clicensing issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Super Bowl LX, meanwhile, was expected to draw as many as 130 million viewers.<\/p>\n
Though largely framed as a memorial to Charlie Kirk, the TPUSA founder killed in September during a campus talk, \u201cThe All-American Halftime Show\u201d included no appearance by his widow, Erika Kirk, who has been on an extended media tour since her husband\u2019s death. President Trump did not comment directly on the concert, choosing instead to rant about Bad Bunny\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!\u201d Trump wrote on his digital platform, Truth Social. \u201cIt makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn\u2019t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World.\u201d These comments came amid renewed scrutiny of Trump\u2019s relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n
The Democratic party\u2019s official X account screenshotted Trump\u2019s post about Bad Bunny, observing: \u201cGuess he wasn\u2019t watching Kid Rock then.\u201d<\/p>\n
The livestream of the TPUSA event was preceded by a message from defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who said that the so-called Department of War was \u201cproud to support\u201d it. Viewers were also directed to a phone number they could call to \u201cstart or join a Turning Point USA chapter.\u201d Comments on the stream were filled with remarks such as \u201cProtect kids,\u201d \u201cNo NFL on screen,\u201d \u201cGOD BLESS AMERICA,\u201d and \u201cJESUS.\u201d<\/p>\n
Country singer Brantley Gilbert kicked off the concert, heavy on pyrotechnic visual effects throughout, rapping into a microphone with brass knuckles on it and performing the hit \u201cDirt Road Anthem,\u201d which he cowrote but was originally made famous by Jason Aldean in 2010. It features the line \u201cBetter watch out for the boys in blue,\u201d a reference to trouble with police. The crowd, some wearing MAGA hats, then swayed to a couple of tunes by Gabby Barrett, who won the 2021 Female Artist of the Year award at the Academy of Country Music Awards.<\/p>\n
Next came Lee Brice, who shouted out Kirk directly. \u201cCharlie, he gave people microphones so they could say what was on their minds,\u201d he declared before launching into a premiere performance of a new song called \u201cCountry Nowadays.\u201d The lyrics included an allusion to gender politics. \u201cI turn the TV on and sit and watch the evening news \/ Be told if I tell my own daughter that little boys ain\u2019t little girls \/ I\u2019d be up the creek in hot water,\u201d he sang. The chorus noted: \u201cIt ain\u2019t easy being country in this country nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Sunday evening, during Bad Bunny\u2019s electrifying halftime performance at Super Bowl LX, a crowd of what appeared to be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}