Coldplay To Join Beyonce For Super Bowl Show

British band Coldplay will be among some of music's biggest names when they make their Super Bowl debut at the half-time stage in front of a 100-million strong audience tonight.

Lady Gaga has been confirmed to sing the US national anthem before the game kicks off, and Beyonce and Bruno Mars will return to the stage for the first time since 2013 and 2014 respectively for the half-time entertainment show.

Speaking at a news conference for the Super Bowl, which will see the Denver Broncos play the Carolina Panthers, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said: "We love Beyonce's music and she's one of the greatest performers I've ever witnessed.

"The people from NFL came to us this year and wanted us to include the past, present and future ... the way we are honouring the past is to look at the people whose past half-time shows we really loved, and Beyonce's is right up with that."

Ahead of her performance, Beyonce released a surprise new song called Formation with her daughter Blue Ivy featuring in the video.

The Super Bowl is the highlight of the American football calendar, and previous performers include Katy Perry, Madonna, and the Rolling Stones.

Perry's performance of her hit Teenage Dream in 2015 sparked the "left shark" meme, with viewers bemused by one of the two backing dancers in shark outfits who appeared to have gone rogue.

Paying homage to that moment, Martin joked: "We've got left shark, middle shark, front shark, back shark, two right sharks and the reserve shark in case one of the first sharks has a problem."

He added: "No viewer at home will have any shark-based trauma."

This year's Super Bowl is expected to be of the most highly guarded sporting events in US history.

Although officials have said there is no specific or credible threat to the game at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, some 50 miles southeast of San Francisco, security services are piling resources into it to prevent any repeat of the deadly attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.

Hundreds of US law enforcement agents have moved into the San Francisco Bay Area and the FBI is deploying commando-style SWAT teams, as well as bomb experts, so that specialists are in place should the worst happen, officials said.