Are football's big games the riskiest gig in music?
There is a gig. It is a very short gig: a tight six minutes or so. It is also unpaid. In exchange, though, the offer promises exposure that borders on priceless: a live crowd of about 70,000, and a captive television audience in the hundreds of millions.
The appeal of serving as the pregame entertainment at one of European soccer's twin showpieces — the finals of the Champions League and the European Championship — is so obvious, and the benefits of that brief performance so extravagant, that the likes of Camila Cabello, Alicia Keys and the Black Eyed Peas (albeit without Fergie) have signed up to do it.
There is, however, a catch. For most, what is likely to be one of the most high-profile gigs of their career might also be the riskiest booking in music, one that comes with a nonzero chance of being loudly, unapologetically, unremittingly booed.
Regret is not a guarantee, of course. There are acts that look back on their brush with soccer fondly, artists who serve as beacons of hope for the (somewhat unwieldy) trio that is scheduled to play just before the final of Euro 2024 on Sunday in Berlin. The members of that lineup — the Italian dance act Meduza, German singer Leony and American rock band OneRepublic — have presumably chosen to focus on the more positive precedents.
Dua Lipa was such a hit at the 2018 Champions League final that she has subsequently suggested she now considers herself an honorary Liverpool fan. Oceana, a German singer who performed at the final of the 2012 European Championship,
