Super Bowl: Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine responds to backlash over halftime show with Instagram post

Band were under pressure to drop out of the show in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick

Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine has responded to the negative criticism over his band’s Super Bowl halftime performance, with some going so far as to brand it “the worst in the event’s history”.

Viewers weren’t impressed by the underwhelming show put on by the pop rock band, and took issue with it being “too long” and also “boring”.

Maroon 5 performed several songs from their back catalogue, including debut album Songs About Jane, which also caused confusion.

A review in The Independent criticised it for being “lacklustre” and said “not even early 2000s nostalgia could salvage the disappointing concert”.

Levine has now broken his silence with a post on Instagram, which he shared along with an image of the “One Love” light display that featured during their show.

“When we accepted the responsibility to perform at the SBHTS, I took out my pen and just wrote,” he said. “Some of the words that came to me in that moment eventually made their way onto the incredible lanterns that flew high and low tonight.

“We thank the universe for making our dreams possible. And we thank our critics for always pushing us to do better. One Love.”

He added: “And the list of words is... Forgive, Laugh, Cry, Smile, Share, Live, Endure, Embrace, Remember, Enlighten, Preserve, Inspire, Sweat, Fight, Express, Give, Receive, Elevate, Climb, Unify, Fortify, Soften, Dance, Scream, Dream, Educate, Provide, Inhale, Exhale, Persevere, Stand, Kneel, Overcome, Love, Listen.”

Maroon 5 were inundated with calls to drop out of the halftime show due to an ongoing protest against the NFL’s treatment of Colin Kaepernick.

At the time, Levine claimed “no one thought about it more than I did” and said he “silenced all the noise and listened to myself, and made my decision about how I felt”.