Super Bowl 50 half-time show: Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars complicit in incoherent mess

Artists were lumped together and never allowed to shine in their own right

Coldplay have performed their Super Bowl half-time show, except in an apparent lack of faith from the NFL, they were overshadowed by Beyonce being inherently awesome and a weird montage of half-time shows' past.

While a lengthy medley is tradition, the band were allowed only Viva La Vida and a heavily truncated version of Fix You, interspersed by two acts who have both played the same slot within the last five years.

Beyonce performed her brand new track - as opposed to the Coldplay collab that was expected - while Bruno Mars' role appeared to be entirely aesthetic, strutting around the stage flanked by a gang, Grease-style in black outfits.

The whole performance felt very erratic, with no artist being allowed to settle into a song properly and the whole thing being over in a flash.

Beyonce inevitably proved the highlight, walking the field with typical ferocity, and Chris Martin's attempts to join the party felt very much like a dad jumping in too early at a wedding. Twitter users were quick to suggest Bey simply headline every year.

The half-time show was framed by Coldplay's usual 2005 era neon tie dye visual, and the references to the last 50 years of Super Bowl history were as regrettably shallow as the Super Bowl L's ditching of its Roman numeral to become Super Bowl 50.

Black Eyed Peas nadir it wasn't, but certainly a step down from Katy Perry's brilliantly bananas performance last year