Picture of the Day: Dancing in the dark

(REUTERS)

On Super Bowl Sunday, it takes something spectacular to steal the show. A blooper will do it, of course. In 2009 we had Bruce Springsteen knee-sliding across the stage and, groin-first, into a TV camera. In 2004 it was Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".

This year, in front of a television audience of 111 million – making Sunday night’s Super Bowl XLV the most watched programme in US history – we had Christina Aguilera mumbling her way through the second verse of the national anthem.

But organisers will hope a different image stays with the audience: that of hundreds of dancers performing their moves clad in bodysuits lit with LEDs, accompanying the hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas in the half-time show – with the Peas' singer Fergie augmenting her own LED outfit with $2m of diamonds.

Occasional audio glitches through the 10-minute performance paled in comparison with Aguilera's earlier fumble. When performing the "Star Spangled Banner" before the kick-off, the singer, who has been performing the anthem since the age of nine, fluffed the line "O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming", causing outrage among patriotic viewers.