Well I admit to being a cynical old bastard who ceremoniously moans about all the boring, safe, predictable aspects of British media and British occasions.
A safe attitude of adorning our TV screens with celebrity chefs, long since redundant soap stars, clean cut ‘pop stars’ that your gran would like, and music so turgid that it’s ilk provides the bread and butter playlists of radio stations like Heart FM.
I was expecting the same of the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony…. but Danny Boyle rose above the artificial and the superficial to provide a spectacle of outstanding Britishness. The opening ceremony was majestic, exililerating, eclectic, diverse and full of fun.
London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony
Mr Bean
I loved the fact Boyle didn’t over simplify the spectacle, didn’t spell out the nuances. If you got it, you got it. If you didn’t, tough!
I’ve heard comments like “What was that all about?” and “What a load of bollocks!”. Predictably these comments tend to emanate from people who have not read a book since they left school, who are engrossed in all the cheap dirge on the telly, who cant be arsed to vote, who have no interest in the history of our country and have a greater knowledge of the exponents of celebrity culture than current events.
Arctic Monkeys
Team GB
The soundtrack to these proceedings would have left the aforementioned Heart FM listeners bemused, and maybe confused, as to what they were hearing. The cool and initiated were left smiling that at last the soundtrack to their lives was getting an international showcase.
The media had wildly speculated as to which sporting celebrity would light the Olympic flame. Again, Boyle surprised, and potentially disappointed the media and their overblown infatuation with fame and celebrity, by employing seven young, virtually unknown athletes to perform the duties…and rightly so.
Well done Danny Boyle!
Danny Boyle
The Queen – Looking Glum
…OK, I’ll have one moan. Why not, I love a good moan. I wish the Queen would occasionally smile, occasionally look like she’s interested, occasionally show a miniscule level of emotion.
Surely her advisers could sort this out!
The London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony setlist was:
The Who, ‘Baba O’Riley’
Muse, ‘Map Of The Problematique’
Fuck Buttons, ‘Surf Solar’
Sex Pistols, ‘God Save The Queen’
The Clash, ‘London Calling’
Mike Oldfield, ‘Tubular Bells’
OMD, ‘Enola Gay’
The Jam, ‘Going Underground’
The Rolling Stones, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’
The Beatles, ‘She Loves You’
Millie Small, ‘My Boy Lollipop’
Led Zeppelin, ‘Trampled Under Foot’
The Specials, ‘A Message To You Rudy’
David Bowie, ‘Starman’
Queen, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
Eric Clapton, ‘Wonderful Tonight’
Sex Pistols, ‘Pretty Vacant’
New Order, ‘Blue Monday’
Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ‘Relax’
Soul II Soul, ‘Back To Life’
Happy Mondays, Step On’
Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This’
The Prodigy, ‘Firestarter’
Blur, ‘Song 2’
Underworld, ‘Born Slippy’
Dizzee Rascal, ‘Bonkers’
Amy Winehouse, ‘Valerie’
Muse, ‘Uprising’
Tinie Tempah, ‘Pass Out’
David Holmes, ‘I Heard Wonders’
Arctic Monkeys, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’
The Beatles, ‘Come Together’ (covered by Arctic Monkeys)
The Beatles, ‘The End’
The Beatles, ‘Hey Jude’
A very good round up Mr W…and yes I was impressed a lot more than I thought I’d be…and yes the Old Queen should have been left at home tucked in bed with a cocoa…she looked like she didn’t ‘get it’ and of little interest…and my only other moan would be McCartney…why have that muso luvvy Sir Paul (I’ll have me knighthood its far more status than that old MBE) close the ceremony…Artic Monkeys had done a cool tip of the hat to The Beatles (Lennon in particular)…Ringo singing Get By With A Little Help From My Friends would have been cooler…and Maca fluffed up as well…I’m not a fan of him…you can probably tell.
But yes…the ceremony was interesting…I do feel though that those nurses from the NHS would have been better being at their jobs than dancing around the stadium…but the NHS and the Industrial Revolution certainly merited being featured for once…and the ceremony was from a ‘social’ stance i.e the ‘people’…and about time too! Moronic right wing nonces like that Cannock MP Adrian Burley can go and read a book …what a tit…even Stan Collymore is prepared to stand against him in local elections 🙂 lol…a pillar of the community…nice one Stan you old Dogger lol.
O’Dea you cynical old dog you! You make me seem quite conservative in comparison.
I’m sure the nurses were dancing in their own time and not being subsidised by you and me.
I agree about Macca though. He is an easy option to wheel out for any large global function… but it will probably be his last as his voice is not too clever these days. I can understand why they do it though – The Beatles, even now 40 years later, are still a massive British institution and I’m sure people around the world were creaming their pants at his involvement.
Maybe I’m a bit biased though as The Beatles to me were more about Lennon than McCartney. I’m sure that it was Lennon’s attitude and vision that navigated The Beatles away from being just another pop band.