Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue will headline a Meta Halftime celebration at Caesars Superdome on Monday, Oct. 5, joined by Eric Church, Kirk Franklin, Juvenile, Cyril Neville and Ivan Neville, as the New Orleans Saints hold a 20th-anniversary tribute to their emotional return to the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. The Saints host the Atlanta Falcons that night at 7:15 p.m. CT, and the halftime show will air nationally on ESPN.
The Domecoming celebration, detailed by neworleanssaints.com, will also bring back members of the 2006 Saints team for recognition throughout the evening. Before kickoff, Irma Thomas will join rising local artist River Eckert for a performance of the national anthem, according to the same team release, which notes that performance will also air live on ESPN. Outside the Dome, Champions Square opens at 4 p.m. with expanded gameday entertainment, interactive fan experiences and special programming for fans arriving early.
Honoring the Blocked Punt That Sparked a Comeback City
Steve Gleason and Curtis Deloatch will be honored as Legends of the Game for their roles in one of the most replayed moments in franchise history — Gleason's blocked punt in the first quarter of the 2006 opener, recovered by Deloatch for a touchdown that helped ignite a 23-3 win over the Falcons, per the team's release. As fox8live.com reports, Gleason's block became the enduring image of that night, eventually inspiring the Rebirth statue that now stands outside the Superdome.
Gleason was diagnosed with ALS in 2011, and according to wdsu.com, he and his foundation have since helped others battling the disease, work that led to him being awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Team Gleason will serve as the beneficiary of the game's 50/50 raffle to support people living with ALS, the Saints announced.
Why the 2006 Game Still Resonates Across New Orleans
The original Domecoming carried weight far beyond football. As Awful Announcing's oral history of the 2006 game explains, the Superdome had stood as a mass shelter and last place of refuge for thousands of citizens after Hurricane Katrina, making the building's reopening on ESPN's Monday Night Football against the rival Falcons a moment of civic significance. That night also marked the start of a new era for the franchise, with Sean Payton taking over as head coach and Drew Brees as quarterback.
The 2006 game drew national star power, too — former President George H.W. Bush tossed the coin, both Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell were in attendance, and U2 and Green Day performed before kickoff, according to the outlet's account. The Saints went on to beat Atlanta 23-3 that night, a result the team's own history page also confirms, returning to the Louisiana Superdome for the first time in more than a year. Irma Thomas performed the national anthem that evening alongside Allen Toussaint, per neworleanssaints.com's retrospective on the reopening.
For the 20th-anniversary tribute, Thomas returns for the anthem once more, this time alongside Eckert, as the Saints lean into a night built around memory, music and the city's recovery. The Meta Halftime celebration's blend of homegrown artists — Trombone Shorty, Juvenile, and the Nevilles — alongside national names like Church and Franklin underscores how central New Orleans music remains to the franchise's identity two decades after the Dome went dark and came back to life.
