I think we can all agree that Sunday’s Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens was odd, but interesting nonetheless. It didn’t start that way, however.

Poor tackling by the 49ers and stagnant offense opened up the door for Baltimore to take a 21-6 lead at the half. The game looked as though it could become a blowout, might I say?

This is where the danger of the Super Bowl party can creep in. As the weeks of hype wear off and the beer takes hold, we begin to fall into a rigorous pattern of snacking. The game slips out of sight and consequently out of mind. For now….

Enter Beyoncé and the best Super Bowl performance since Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 2008. Her combination of stage effects and choreography made for one delightfully entertaining intermission. I could have gone for a little more singing and a little less transition between acts, but I won’t complain. We can’t forget the unexpected treat of Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams literally popping out of the stage. I must admit. I am a Destiny’s Child fan, so that was a nice touch.

The snacking turns to misery as the second half begins. What seemed an anticlimactic 30 minutes of football became a suspenseful event that football fans will never forget. When the lights went out at the Super Dome in New Orleans, the momentum from a record-setting 109-yard kickoff return by the Ravens’ Jacoby Jones went with it. I remember thinking, “This is going to change everything.”

Regardless of whether the outage was responsible or not, everything did change. The 49ers suddenly had a spark (no pun intended) and Super Bowl XLVII became one for the history books. Despite the 49ers’ gutsy comeback, the cliche older-brother-beats-younger-brother lives on, leaving Jim Harbaugh begging for a pass interference call on the one of last plays of the game and the final score at 34-31.

The Super Bowl, although entertaining and undeniably popular, can become a bit monotonous. More often then not, the excessive hype and over dramatization of the event can overshadow the football game itself. With the power outage, Beyoncé’s halftime performance and the comeback that ensued, the Harbaugh bowl was the perfect combination of novelty, drama and football.