Monday 13 August 2012

Goodbye to all that



We avowed sport-phobes still had to watch the Olympics Closing Ceremony - it was a must...



Certainly it was a bit of a mixed bag, but nonetheless this was an excuse for a party - perhaps one in which the stereo system is a bit knackered (the sound levels were atrocious!), maybe the sort of party where some unwelcome gatecrashers make a bit of a mess on your favourite carpet, but a party nonetheless!





Best bits? Stomp!; Fatboy Slim's octopus; the Spice Girls and their motorised zimmer frames; Annie Lennox and the magnificent gothic pirates; Eric Idle with roller-skating nuns, morris dancers and Welsh ladies with beards; Take That looking sexier than One Direction; Waterloo Sunset (despite Ray Davies's voice cracking up); Pet Shop Boys on futuristic tuk-tuks; the tributes to John Lennon and Freddie Mercury; the fireworks; Running Up That Hill; Darcey Bussell as the flying phoenix; the fact that most of the acts performed on moving vehicles; the sheer joy on the faces of the athletes themselves.





Could have done without? Jessie bloody J, Teeny Tiny Tears Tempah and the other one; Russell Brand's smirk; Muse; George Michael's new song; the pointless Only Fools and Horses reference; Ed bloody Sheeran; the fashion show that fizzled out; the long-drawn-out ushering of the athletes into the arena with repeats of the music we'd just heard.

"Ouch" bits? Annie's too-quiet microphone; the shock of seeing Liam Gallagher looking so haggard; Suggs singing flat; the Who singing "hope I die before I get old" when their average age is 72; Timothy Spall doing a really bad Churchill impersonation; Boris Johnson dancing.

WTF bits? The whole Brazilian section. [And who the fuck are Elbow anyway?]

Disappointments? No David Bowie or Kate Bush as rumoured; nothing from the punk era.

Blessed reliefs? No Elton John, Cliff Richard, Phil Collins or Paul McCartney.





Despite some bad reviews (to be fair, the closing ceremony could never stand up against the magnificent opening one), I think it was quite brilliant. We thoroughly enjoyed it! I think, if it achieved anything at all, the ceremony demonstrated in its eccentric mixture of diverse age-groups, cultures and styles of music and art, that Britain is a truly unique nation - and for that I am eternally grateful!

Watch the whole thing on BBC iPlayer (if it is available in your country, of course)

Highlights on The Guardian website

8 comments:

  1. So Pet Shop Boys were there? What did they perform?

    Kate Bush of course couldn't be bothered (as usual), but "Running Up That Hill" still might end up in the UK Top 10 this weekend! And Bowie seems set on just being retired, sadly.

    Spice Girls - really? They were the main reason I decided to stay away from the whole thing! And George Michael just needs to retire at this point (although I did say that years ago and then he released "December Song", so maybe he can still do something decent - his new song NOT being a part of that).

    No Elton or Paul is obviously a massive blessing! Oh, and I actually semi-like the Elbow single, which is currently in the UK Top 5.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As this was a tribute to London as much as anything else, it could only be West End Girls... And the Spice Girls did very well, indeed, I thought. Jx

      Delete
  2. I think I like your blog more than I liked the Closing Ceremony …

    There were some great highlights, Take That, Darcy Bussell, Eric Idle and The Spice Girls spring to mind but it seemed more miss than hit for me.

    PSB sang West End Girls

    Kate's R.U.T.H is currently 4 on Itunes chart up from 98 on Sunday evening.

    John Lennon's Image is 9 and Elbow's One Day Like This is 6.

    I do like Elbow, One Day Like This is a great sing-along live - very rousing and I felt it worked well live, just a shame the athletes took too long to enter the stadium and so they played the first 5 tracks again on tape…???

    x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers, pet! I had absolutely no idea who Elbow were - I honestly thought Ricky Gervais was droning into a microphone for an attempted joke. Jx

      Delete
  3. fab photos by the way and I loved the Team GB t-shirts (possibly designed by Damien Hirst as they seemed to match the floor covering union flag that he did design).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are fetching silly money on eBay by now, I expect! Jx

      Delete
  4. Personally, I wanted Dame Shirley Bassey to appear. And thought George Michael rather good. One of the few that you could actually hear clearly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We all wanted Dame Shirl to appear, but it wasn't to be... As for George, his voice was in fine form, it's just his choice of a brand new and completely unknown song to feature in a "Symphony of British Music" of the last 50 years that really annoyed me. Jx

      Delete

Please leave a message - I value your comments!

[NB Bear with me if there is a delay - thanks to spammers I might need to approve comments]