Super Bowl LI: Luke Bryan performs Nathan Anthem — grade it now!

Well before the start of Super Bowl Weekend, we first heard the news that Luke Bryan was going to be performing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Fox. The country-music superstar therefore had the huge challenge of trying to impress one of the hardest-to-impress audiences in all of the world. Just think for a moment or two about all of the negative comments that have followed past performances over the years. It’s almost a gig that you don’t want to take just for the sake of having to deal with the backlash!

We give Bryan a lot of credit for going through with this, and he had some high hopes for him — he’s an extremely talented guy, and there’s a huge cross-section between NFL and country music fans. It’s certainly broader than anything that’s going on with the football league and fans of Lady Gaga.

Our Take – Luke went for a pretty simple rendition of the Anthem. There was no guitar, no backing vocal, and no frills — there was simply the sound of his voice. He did hit all of the necessary notes that you would want for him to.

We feel like overall, your enjoyment of the Anthem this time will depend heavily on whether or not you enjoy country music. This was a very good performance for country fans, but we’ve also heard people do WAY more with the song over the years. If you like renditions that are a little more down-to-earth, this is right up your alley.

For those of you do love music that is a little bit more of the big, dramatic variety, rest assured that you’re going to get that a little bit later in the evening when Lady Gaga comes out with her Halftime Show. We imagine that there are going to be a lot of different songs from her catalog thrown into a matter of minutes.

What is your take on Luke Bryan’s National Anthem performance? Share some of your thoughts in the comments.