Super Bowl fans throng South Beach

MIAMI

The weeklong celebration of Super Bowl XLIV spread out all over South Florida, from the journalistic masses shlumping through Fort Lauderdale (read: me) to the Diddy-obsessed pretties strutting through twinkly Miami.

But the epicenter of the mania was on neon-lit, art deco-divine Ocean Drive in South Beach. And it was a loud, dirty, dizzying mess.

You've seen the pictures of the bethonged and the surgically enhanced. You've seen Miami Vice and Bad Boys. But those postcard-familiar images had been invaded, Average Joes mixing with High-Heeled Janes.

Yes, the mojitos still went for $19-a-trough, and there were plenty of Bentleys cruising for oohs and ahhs. VIP tents fluttered at the Clevelander; the throngs waiting outside Prime One Twelve — one of the most coveted tables in town — made for a swell GQ photo shoot.

But put it this way: Half the crowd in South Beach looked like Mariah Carey; the other half was more Drew Carey. Sports, booze, mayhem: great equalizers all.

On Friday night, as a hard rain slanted sideways, Nelly Furtado and Pitbull gave a free show to tens of thousands of dirty bare feet on the beach. A few yards away, a preacher tried to save souls, but his chant of "God fire!" was met with bellows of "Who dat?" bursting from invaders in soggy Reggie Bush jerseys.

Whatever air space was left was filled with Cuban jazz and techno thump. A steady throng of cheap cutoff shorts and pricey cut-low tops wandered up and down the street, watching and being watched, no sense of destination.

"It's phenomenal," said Ben Genard, 25, who road-tripped from New Orleans to cheer his crew. He wore a strand of thick white beads. He couldn't stop smiling. "This is kind of like home, lots of crazy people. At home, though, you spend a lot of money for the best chefs, the best food. Here, you seem to spend a lot of money simply because (of) where you are."

Genard didn't have a ticket to the Big Game, but he couldn't miss this. With a grin, he pulled out his iPhone and cued up a video. It was the scene inside the Superdome, the final ticking seconds of the Saints victory over the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship Game. For all the sinful din in South Beach, for all the jubilant teens and wailing zealots and thump!thump!thump! of mixing genres, you could still hear his tiny phone, the cathartic realization of Tough Town about to travel to Versace Town.

And now, here they were, from Bourbon Street to Ocean Drive.

And those mojitos tasted sublime.

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8467. His Pop Life column runs every Sunday in Floridian.