Bruno Mars and Red Hot Chili Peppers well and truly rocked the Super Bowl XLVIII on Sunday night (February 2).

The Hawaiian hitmaker came out smoking, playing a bad-ass drum solo while wearing a gold suit and floating across MetLife Field in the intro to a hyped Locked Out of Heaven to kick off the festivities.

Mars opened his bid for Super Bowl supremacy just moments earlier with a children's choir harmonising on a pop gospel version of the chorus from Billionaire, the Travie McCoy hit Mars produced with his crew, The Smeezingtons.

In case you still wondered whether he had the cred to land the kind of gig reserved for Beyoncé, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, Mars seemed determined to prove he did.

The singer jammed into the old school roller-boogie disco jam Treasure, complete with synchronised foot slides, before doubling the tempo for a rip through Runaway Baby, which included a riff on the Isley Brothers house party soul classic Shout.

He then welcomed co-stars Red Hot Chili Peppers to the stage, performing their hit Give It Away, as Mars stood shoulder-to-shoulder with ageless, and always shirtless frontman Anthony Kiedis, 51, as he let the SoCal legends swarm the stage for one of their biggest hits, fading into the the background momentarily.

With both bands thrashing along to the tune's elastic groove, Chili Peppers guitarist John Klinghoffer briefly grabbed the spotlight with his crazed, Jimi Hendrix-like guitar freak out to end the jam.

The two-headed musical machine thrashed into brief a chorus of Jump that had them all, yup, jumping in near unison before the Peppers vacated the stage to make way for a series of pre-taped long-distance dedications from deployed American troops.

The hyped set ended on a somber note with the powerful ballad Just the Way You Are, which Mars crooned out amid a giant fireworks display over the stadium.

The Seattle Seahawks went on to beat Denver Broncos in the clash, with Queen Latifah and Grammy winner Renée Fleming also performing at the game - which took place at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.