Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars perform at Super Bowl show
Coldplay played to an estimated television audience of 112 million during the half-time show at the Super Bowl on Sunday night.
The Brits played a medley of hits but Beyonce was judged to have stolen the show, premiering new song Formation. Bruno Mars also thrilled the crowd with a performance of 2015's biggest selling song Uptown Funk. Advertisers pay a premium for a slice of the huge audience, shelling out up to $5m (£3.4m) for a 30-second slot. According to marketing technology company Amobee Brand Intelligence, an advert for tortilla chip makers Doritos accounted for more than 140,000 tweets associated with the brand. The game began with a performance of the US national anthem by Lady Gaga, dressed in a sparkly red trouser suit and red, white and blue striped platform heels. The half-time show at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, opened with Coldplay's Chris Martin kneeling on the field singing the first lines of their song Yellow before transitioning into Viva La Vida. They also performed their single Paradise, accompanied by a youth marching band. Beyonce performed her new track accompanied by backing dancers kitted out in black berets, reminiscent of the 1970s revolutionary political party The Black Panthers. The artists all joined up to sing Coldplay's ballad Fix You, accompanied by a montage of performances clips from previous Super Bowl half-time shows, including by Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and U2. According to Nielsen, which measures audiences - this year's game was the third most-watched programme in US television history. The company estimates an average audience of 111.9 million were watching throughout the game, peaking at 115.5 million for the half-time show. In its review of the show, Variety said Coldplay were "not a popular band in certain cred-obsessed corners of the internet. They are, however, arguably the only mass-appeal pop-rock act not yet eligible for Social Security that could make a reasonable claim to the sort of universality that has become the gig's primary pre-requisite, so their booking certainly made sense". However, it added performing with "the far flashier Bey and Mars... Coldplay seemed resigned to politely allowing themselves to be played right off their own stage". The Guardian agreed, saying Beyonce's "charged affirmation of black female pride... could hardly have been more diametrically opposed to Coldplay's soppy indie". "As soon as Beyonce marched onto the football field, clad in skintight leather and Michael Jackson-style military gold sashes, with a posse of impeccably choreographed female dancers dressed like '70s Black Panthers, it was time for an early bath for Chris Martin's band," it added. Celebrities David Beckham, Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and singer Justin Bieber attended the game which saw the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24-10.