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Super Bowl shows who's 'The Boss'

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform at the half time show during Super Bowl XLIII featuring the Arizona Cardinals vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on February 1, 2009. (UPI Photo/Kevin Dietsch) 
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Published: Feb. 2, 2009 at 12:31 AM

TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Bruce Springsteen may be "The Boss" but his Super Bowl XLIII halftime performance in Tampa, Fla., still drew a delay of game flag from a "referee."

The hokey ending to the four-song set the 59-year-old rocker performed with his E Street Band was all in good fun. After all, it was Springsteen who started the raucous, pyrotechnic-punctuated performance by barking out to his TV audience: "I want you to step back from the guacamole dip, I want you to put the chicken fingers down and turn your television all the way up!"

Springsteen did his best not to delay the game, cutting verses out of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," "Born To Run," "Working on a Dream" and "Glory Days," The New York Times noted.

And he called a couple of audibles, inserting "Super Bowl" for "this city" in "Tenth Avenue," and in "Glory Days" morphing the hero from a baseball pitcher into a football quarterback and turning a "speedball" into a "Hail Mary."

But the crowd loved him anyway.

Topics: Bruce Springsteen
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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