Super Bowl 50: Lady Gaga performs National Anthem; Marlee Matlin signs for hard of hearing

Tonight is Super Bowl 50, and there are a few things that are a tradition: Great commercials, and then also a few moving moments featuring performers celebrating this great country.

We started tonight with “America the Beautiful,” performed by a military chorus. This was nice. There are so many times in which we see these events go the celebrity angle, and while we think these are great discussion points, it’s also nice to see the military celebrated in such a great way. Also, it was rather nice to have Marlee Matlin on board to provide a sign-language interpretation for the hard of hearing. That is regrettably something that is still often forgotten.

Now, we move to the National Anthem and Lady Gaga. She certainly knew that this would be one of the biggest performances of her career so far; in many ways, many viewers are watching solely for the purpose of seeing if she messes up. We hate that this is the case, but it’s the generation we live in.

Personally, we think that she nailed it. She hit all of the notes (not easy), didn’t make any major gaffes), and made it mostly about the song. There’s a little bit of improvisation that we think that you can get with this song, but you don’t want to take it away too far from the melody. If you do, you run the risk of turning people off in that way. This gig comes at a big time for Gaga, who also is appearing at the Oscars later this month.