I reckon it was a government plot.
A stunning opening ceremony, followed by two weeks of (mainly) sunshine, epic sport, many medals and worldwide plaudits for a job well done. There was a real danger that we Brits could start to feel good about ourselves, and goodness knows what horrors that might lead to. Time to gently lead us back into reality with a totally shit closing ceremony.
The high point for me was a video of a dead man singing “Imagine”. The low point was the rest of it. A bunch of self-absorbed tossers, all past their sell-by dates, singing mainly out of tune to the accompaniment of a “show” which lacked imagination, pace or relevance. Spice Girls: Do you wanna be my lover? No, but I could use a sniper rifle. The Who as a closing act? My Generation was my generation; hardly relevant to most people today; is that really the best you could do?
The crapness of the closing, highlighted again just how special Danny Boyle’s opening night had been. The Son tried to cheer me up by sending me a link to the music from the Pandemonium section of the show.
I had known that Underworld had been involved in the production. What I hadn’t realised is that they were directly responsible for writing much of the music. I like Underworld, I have the Everything Everything DVD of an Underworld live show and I play it often; but it wouldn’t make me thing of hiring them to write the music for the Olympics. But Boyle had worked with them before and knew what he wanted; which he summarised as the need to frighten people and “at the end, people had to be going: ‘Christ, you can’t possibly do that to us for the next three hours.’” (I actually felt that after the first five minutes of the closing ceremony; but for completely different reasons).
Seems to me that the recorded version has less raw impact than the live version we saw on TV, but you can hear more going on, and of course there is still the astonishing percussion of Dame Evelyn Glennie.
Wonderful music, a couple of blasts of that at high volume and I have almost obliterated the memory of George Michael and Tinie Tossing Tempah. A gin & tonic should do the rest.
Comments 🔗
2012-08-14| Lloyd saysIt seems very few people alive enjoyed the closing ceremony, a fitting headline in yesterdays London Evening Standard “Olympic playlist from hell”.
2012-08-14| genuinej saysAgreed. Total shite. The closing ceremony that is, not your keen observations. MSN’s view was “cynical populist twaddle, scraping the bottom of the barrel” Who can disagree? (..make me thing of hiring them??)
2012-08-15| Grant saysThank you so very much for that old chap, absolutely chuffed I missed it! Still, ‘cynical populist twaddle’ (lovely phrase, wish I’d thought of it myself) is what seems to ring the tills these days when all manner of ‘barrel scrapings’ are constantly thrust upon us as being apparently worthy of our notice. If you want me I’ll be curled up with a very good book…