20 years younger than 'really old' doesn't say much. The Roses haven't had a record out for over 15 years, and the Mondays' peak was earlier than that. Carter have long disbanded and the members have other jobs.. Radiohead? at a celebration? To be honest, with the possible exception of The Beta Band I don't find your list objectively more 'credible' than the ones they did choose.


By who? I wouldn't recognise a member of Kasabian if I fell over them in the street. Nor would I be particularly bothered if I did.

Mind you, nothing would have been as bad as Russell Brand miming 'I Am The Walrus'. I was half expecting the ghost of John Lennon to appear and kick him off the top of that bus.

Jon

Part of my point is that it's the same bands that get dragged out during these national events. It's lazy. I was merely trying to illustrate that we're not short on good musical talent.



No, but The Who haven't had a record out in much, much longer. The Stone Roses are still gigging. Carter are still gigging (not quite disbanded in fact).
You honestly couldn't see Optimistic performed by Radiohead with some avant garde dance piece about the Olympian's stubble and achievements?



Well I feel the same way about Muse (and they're from the next town over), Queen and George Michael, and while I'm no Kasabian fan they are perhaps more relevant than those three. They consistently get amazing reviews of their live shows and albums, and are recognised abroad.

Actually, I'd like to have had Courtney Pine and Dennis Rollins do something as well.

Frankly, no. But that's irrelevant because the show wasn't there to cater for you or I specifically. The point surely is the thinking behind the closing ceremony plainly wasn't 'what will be cool' it was 'what will the most people find at least acceptable'. One of the reasons the closing ceremony was less successful than the opening ceremony was that, IMO, the opening ceremony had the courage to say 'sod what most people will be happy with, we're going with this.'


In Europe certainly, but I can find little evidence of any great notoriety in any other part of the world.


I refer you to my earlier point. The number of people who would recognise Courtney Pine is vastly outnumbered by those who would recognise George Michael. It's not a fact I particularly enjoy but to pretend otherwise is howling at the moon.

Jon

Bloody kids these days, sitting in front of a computer screen.

have they, I wonder who im seeing in november then

Fair does, they were disbanded last time I heard about them. doesn't change the fact that if they'd showed up at the closing ceremony, 99.9% of the viewing population would have said 'who the [LIFTED] are those guys'?

Seriously, if you wanted CUSM on the closing ceremony, you're entirely missing the point of it.

Jon

i didnt say I wanted Carter at the closing ceremony, though it would have been cool. They could have got Philip Schoefield on so they could have punched him again

The Belarus femail shot putter is stripped of her medal after failing a dope test
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19242736

I've been thinking about it, and I think this is the core thing. When we all sat down before the opening ceremony, we all had effectively the same thoughts in our heads - We we all thought 'wouldn't it be great if...' and then we thought 'well, it isn't going to be, is it? it's just going to be..'. And then, miraculously, when the the opening ceremony happened it turned out we were right the first time. The opening ceremony was the all things we hoped it would be, if not in the individual detail then at least in the spirit and the bravery and the artistry and the humour.

And then we had the games itself and we all thought 'wouldn't it be great if it all went off well, and we won loads of gold medals' and then we thought 'well, it isn't going to be, is it? It's going to be transport problems and failed drugs tests and valiantly earned silver medals for GB.' And then, miraculously, when the games happened it turned out we were right the first time. It did all go off well (pretty much), we did win gold medals all over the place and what's more we had a whale of a time doing it.

And then we got to the closing ceremony and we all thought 'wouldn't it be great if...'

and it wasn't. It was merely what we should have expected it to be. It was merely what we would have expected it to be, if it hadn't followed the most exceptional two weeks this country has seen in the best part of a century. In isolation it was an OK ceremony, got the job done. In context? It couldn't match up. In reality, It probably couldn't ever have matched up.

It was the guy who finished in fourth place. Objectively, that's a pretty good performance. But at these games? It just seemed not good enough.

Jon

It wasn't even that good - it was the hurdler who knocked a few over, wasn't ever going to be as quick as the rest of the field and came in 6th.
You're right though, and this is really the point I've been trying to make. After the all round good show, why lean on the tired phoning-it-in, painting-by-numbers sort of ceremony. Utterly predictable.
And that's the problem. The opening ceremony was superb because it wasn't trying to pander to everyone. As soon as you try to please everyone, you're bound to fail.

[url=http://louderthanwar.com/[LIFTED]/]This blog[/url] entry neatly sums up some of the points, I feel:

"And the most audaciously lazy bit of all: the entire audio track of the opening section then replayed as backing soundtrack to the athletes arriving and partying. Gavin couldn’t even be bothered to pick some different tunes to play out over the PA. Even the [LIFTED] amateur wedding DJ wouldn’t pull that stunt. So cheapskate, one almost expected the Spotify adverts to interrupt halfway through."

So, in order to create a "feel good" vibe, we need to use music from the 1970s and 1980s? The music industry really is in deep [LIFTED].

I'll bet the new bronze medalist is pissed off she didn't get to stand on the podium.

I find the whole response to the closing ceremony's "muscial acts" to be quite amusing. Yes, Britain have an amazing musical pedigree, spanning decades, and perhaps the night could have done better. But each of the generations of those decades is going to have something to say about the other - and seldom a good word - so why does everyone seem to be so worked up about how crap it was (or wasn't)?

Personally, I couldn't give a toss about a single one of the musical perfomers on either of the nights. Not because I think their inclusion was "wrong", "inappropropriate" or otherwise. Nor because they were either a convicted paedophile, a self-promoting serial law breaker, processed pop pubescents or even over-hyped has-beens - no, it's because none of their music does it for me. Norman Cook came a little close, but he's v.old hat and even was when we first made pop-tastic-big-beat the soundtrack of many fondly-forgotten festivals past. But you don't hear me complaining.

Why? Because like it or not, The Spice Girls, The Who, George Michael, Oasis, Take That, and all their assorted accompaniments, all, in one way or another, have defined genres for the last few generations of music fans. Not just at home - but internationally. I was quite suprised we didn't see Steps to be honest, because they were HUGE globallly. That's not to say I wanted them. But someone had to be picked - and I imagine the reaction to my 3 hour long playlist of Drum & Bass would have been even less enthusiastic (from both foreign and homegrown audiences).

As for alternative suggestions for "what could have been" well, so far no one's convinced me that their choice(s) would have suited the global scale of the event in any better a way than those that were picked. My "hipster" mates would have had their dirgey folk driving us to suicide had they had their way, my chavvy mates wanted non-stop dubstep (which, like D&B is purely British-born, yet didn't feature either!) my 35-40-something friends wanted a recreation of Tony Wilson's Manchester, my Mum wanted Northern Soul, the gay contingent wanted (the real) Kate Bush, others wanted Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin & Queen (and not much more)... etc etc... And just as I was suprised not to see Steps step out, I'm equally suprised there's been no mention (in reaction threads) of the likes of Dido, The Prodigy, Sinéad O'Connor, Faithless, Massive Attack... or even Elton John.


In fact, this little late night rant has just led me to read THIS - not a lot of new stuff is there? Still 4 in the top 10 of all time ain't bad.

I've lost my train of thought and don't know how to finish so

London 2012 - The Golden Games

The BBC's retrospective piece, shown last night, for those who missed it. Fantastic footage, fantastic music, and the best voice in British television. Well worth the time.