Don't these multimillion $ Hollywierd stars even practice before they go on live TV to sing our National Anthem? Are they not proud enough to do it right, or is their brain distracted by the glitter and camera flashes so much that they forget the lines. Butchering my National Anthem isn't what I want to open the games. Maybe the powers to be should select a "nobody" to do it and have it done right.....or do they care anymore???

 

I am a college basketball fan and I go to quite a few games. I have literally attended hundreds of games. The National Anthem is usually sung by either a local singer or more often a student. All of them are very talented.

I'm a purist, I prefer it sung the way it was intended and some of them add their own little embellishments that irritate me but I have never heard a single one of them screw it up. However, Aguillara has apologized. She said she just lost her place in the lyrics.

What really frosts me are the people that disrespect the anthem.

 

Didn't even know she had messed up - I hit the mute button just as she started singing

 

I only watched for the commercials. I could not stand to see Pittsburgh lose....uggggg...

The Jets would have beat Green Bay.......J...E...T...S.... JETS JETS JETS.... next year...

Mike NJ

 

You and me both, mitch. Whenever the Anthem is coming up at a major event I sit with thumb poised over the mute button. Usually takes about 2-3 seconds to make the call.

IMHO, she was butchering the song well before she blew the lyrics. Like Wayne, I want to hear it sung as it was intended, as an upbeat, lively 3/4 tempo piece, and not embellished with the singers own ideas of music arranging. It's not a funeral march, rap song, R&B number, heavy metal, or reggae and if it's sung like it is, I don't listen. Penned a letter to the editor of the local newspapers saying much the same things this morning. I can't remember when the last time was that I heard anyone sing a respectible rendition at a major sporting event.

Just a thought for all of you north of the border, do singers murder O Canada at your sporting events?

 

I also heard the halftime show did not live up to expectations but I was out of the room for that

I guess I'm not that much of a football fan, either - I went to bed in the third quarter and had to ask at work this morning who had even won

Oh, well - Speed Week from Daytona next week

 

I listened to about 3 minutes of the halftime show and then switched over and watched 20 minutes or so of one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart movies being aired, Winchester '73.

 

Now you're talking

Never been much of a ball sport fan but stock cars

 

Sometimes. Not too often though. They get put out on a local ice flow when they do, so...

One of the greatest anthem singers I've ever seen was Mark Donnelly from the Vancouver Canucks. He gets the crowd involved. I've seen people start crying and shaking when this happens. It's quite moving.

YouTube - Mark Donnelly Sings the Canadian Anthem in HD

 

I don't know who the singer was but one of the years the Blue Jays were in the World Series, the guy who did O Canada made the guy singing the Star Spangled Banner look really bad. He was very good, too bad they didn't just engage him to sing both.

 

I've heard a few good ones...and a lot of bad...didn't hear the SB version...forgot it was on...lol. Wish I'd known about Winchester 73!
I remember one from way back...Lou Rawls did a fantastic job. Heard Marie Osmond at 2 hockey games..also great. Most recently heard Terry Fader (the puppet guy from America's Got Talent) at the Las Vegas NASCAR race...that guy can really sing!

Can you believe I'll probably miss the Daytona 500? Wife has a 1/2 Marathon and I think it's on Sunday? Jeez.....they probably won't do a replay either...except on Speed which I don't get.

 

Wayne, I'm like you, I guess Francis Scott Key had it down right from the beginning, and all the other embellishments are for glitter. I don't think the song was meant to draw attention to the singer, but to the honor of the flag.
Speaking of purists, a little off topic, but hey, it's my topic!! Last week we had the Young Harris College Choir perform at church. I handle the audio. They wanted no amplification in the house. Easy day for me, set recording values, take the house out and sit back. A lot of "purists" are doing that nowadays. They want to hear what they are doing, rather than what we can "make" happen with electronics. Cool.

 

Just a side note, Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics as a poem but did not set the words to music. I knew that part off the top off my head but had to look up who did set it to music on Answers.com:

Judge Joseph H. Nicholson who was Francis Scott Key's borther-in-law. The melody is "To Anacreon in Heaven", an old British drinking song from the mid-1760s, composed in London by John Stafford Smith.

 

I knew a little of that info, but would have had to look up the names/titles. Maybe that's the key (pardon the pun); the current crop of performers are singing it like it still was a drinking song.

 

Love Winchester '73; I'm due to watch that one again.

The anthem is best sung by local people who are well-grounded in that community. It is a humbling honor to be asked, not an opportunity for attention.

At halftime I'd rather have seen Slash play while Fergie or someone sings.

 

I thought that young lady at the Daytona 500 today did an excellent job.

After watching the Nationwide race I thought today would be very interesting, and it was. Now, if someone could convince Mikey to retire it would have been a lot better.