The big question about the Olympic Games’s closing ceremony was whether or not it would be enough to eradicate memories of the sodden opening ceremony, which had provoked everything from bad reviews to death threats aimed at executive director Thierry Reboul and artistic director Thomas Jolly, the latter apparently from people upset at a tableau they misinterpreted as a satire of the Last Supper.
Reboul, understandably sounding like a man who was fed up with the whole business and just wished it was over, pre-emptively suggested not: he had revised the script for “the umpteenth time” and promised a “moment of tolerance, sharing and community” but added that, however good it was, it would not “[change] the perception of the opening ceremony”.
Musically, at least, he was right. Music had proved the one bit of the opening ceremony that everyone seemed to agree on: it was bold to feature a Francophone death metal band, Gojira; Zizi Jeanmaire’s Mon truc en plumes sounded kitsch-y and engaging, even if you wondered why Lady Gaga had been chosen to sing it; if the opening event had an emotional apex, it was the sight of Céline Dion on the first level of the Eiffel Tower, suddenly out of enforced retirement and in good enough health to belt out an old Edith Piaf number in supremely classy style.
At the closing ceremony, however, music felt like something of an afterthought. France’s big contribution to latter-day pop, Daft Punk, are long out of action: the duo have a strong claim to be the most influential artists in 21st-century pop, but they announced their split in 2021, and moreover are famously unbiddable – no chance of getting Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo to reconvene, vast global audience or not.
In their absence, it was down to Phoenix to do the heavy lifting: the Versailles quartet’s slightly ironic take on soft rock is both impressively done and something of a hip cause célèbre, but they hardly constitute a household name outside France, as evidenced by the BBC announcer feeling obliged to explain who they were to the baffled multitudes.
Their set was studded with guest appearances – electronic duo Air turned up, oddly performing a track from their soundtrack to Sofia Coppola’s 1999 film The Virgin Suicides, rather than something off their multi-platinum debut album Moon Safari, the subtle accompaniment to dozens of home makeover shows; so too did Vampire Weekend’s frontman, Ezra Koenig, the BBC announcer having to explain who he was as well – and there was something appealingly chaotic about their appearance, after a fairly portentous segment involving an alien falling to Earth and being educated in the history of the Olympic Games.
Clearly desperate for a party, the athletes who had previously flooded the Stade de France launched an unscheduled stage invasion. It left the band playing their greatest hits – Lisztomania, If I Ever Feel Better – surrounded by a sweatily excitable tracksuit-clad throng. You could make an argument that it was substantially more hip than Olympic closing ceremonies traditionally are: compared with London 2012, which broke out everything from Spice Girls to Liam Gallagher, it was like something designed by the editorial staff of music website Pitchfork. But equally, there was something faintly underwhelming about it: it’s meant as no criticism of Phoenix to suggest that this was a moment where you wanted big, unifying, immediately recognisable singalong anthems, rather than critically acclaimed alt-rock.
As it was, it turned out to be merely a prelude for the segment of the show in which Los Angeles took over the Olympic flame in readiness for the 2028 event. To the accompaniment of the chugging guitars of HER, Tom Cruise abseiled into the arena, then rode out on a motorbike to the accompaniment of the Red Hot Chili Peppers doing By the Way. “Hollywood has just come to us!” cried Claire Balding, clearly delighted at the appearance of someone the viewers would recognise, before the action switched to Venice Beach.
Red Hot Chili Peppers were there in person, performing on a beach: they looked ridiculous – bassist Flea in a voluminous pair of yellow shorts, frontman Anthony Kiedis in a string vest – and sounded substantially less cool than Phoenix. But equally, they required no explication as to who they were.
Likewise Billie Eilish, singing Birds of a Feather by a lifeguard’s station, or indeed Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre, performing with the admittedly peculiar accompaniment of a female dancer doing her thing next to lavishly appointed trike. As musical spectacle went, the USA appeared to have it in the bag: not, perhaps, the overall effect that the Parisian organisers were looking for.
