Closing Ceremony

[Ken Shabby]

I know I'm gonna get a caning for this, but here goes....

The opening ceremony turned out better than expected, so I thought I'd give this a go. I tried to enjoy it, I really did. And I don't want to take anything away from anyone who did, or any of the many, many people who were involved in the staging of it, but the 'talent', almost without exception, was just so poor! Where do I start? How about the bloody awful George Michael, no doubt, representing Britons who play with themselves in public toilets (yeah, I know it's old news, but can anyone else think of a reason why he of all people was allowed to take over?). Or The Olympic Commities' indulgence of Russell Brand's 'I'm actually a rock star' fantasy. Now it was a real strain to keep my dinner down by this point, but when that Jessie J bloke (who's already on everything anyway) came on I'd finally had enough and had to turn it off! How the hell do they get this stuff so wrong?

[Arginald Valleywater]

Some good bits, some great bits and some crap. Kaiser Chiefs "My Generation" and Eric Idle were brilliant. Queen doing Brighton Rock and We Will Rock you showed people what playing live is about. Freddie would have loved that kind of show! Emma Bunton is now officially ultra Milf!!

[Dave Wells]

Totally agree. It was pretty much expected. Biggest fault was the sound I reckon although when Queen attacked the proceedings the sound became good ! You are so right Fred would have been ace. They should have tempted the Stones to play I reckon !

[David Johnson]

"How the hell do they get this stuff so wrong?"

You obviously didn't see the shots of Boris Johnson dancing to the Spice Girls. I never knew middle aged white blokes had such a fantastic sense of rhythm!

"Jessie J bloke"

Err! Sam Slater told me that evolution and biology weren't your thing.

Whilst I was a tad disappointed that they didn't have Ken Dodd singing "Tears for Souvenirs" (apppropriate subject for the Olympics, don't you think?), I realise that there was a need to cater for a range of tastes e.g. One Direction - a very popular boy band beat combo, I do believe.

Overall, excellent! Great lighting. And a history of 40 years worth of British music. We even had a bloke fired out of a cannon.

Always look on the bright side of life, Ken.

[jimslip]

The whole think was brilliant and the best of all were The Who at the end, shame they didn't do a whole set!

[Peter]

jimslip wrote:

> The whole think was brilliant and the best of all were The Who
> at the end, shame they didn't do a whole set!
>
>

Did someone 'pull the plug' on them at the end? There seemed to be a couple of bars of something start up, then it all went off, with an audiable "Awwwww" from the crowd.

I'd have preferred to have the video of Mercury playing throughout, instead of that stripper they foisted upon them, and I thought We are the Champions would have been an obvious song to get the whole stadium singing.

Not a bad effort, could have been a lot better.

[frankthring]

It was, I thought, absolutely bloody awful crap ! Like a stadium edition
of "Top of the Pops" with end-of-the-pier cheesiness. The lip-synching
such as Eric Idle`s was awful, the sound engineer deserves to be thrown
out of his profession and never work again. We had had a run-thru of
some British pop music at the opening ceremony so why keep flogging it ?
Yes, the world knows the Brits have had some great pop artists. So what
else ?
After a drum-beating "Welcome to Britain" in the Opening Ceremony with
its barmy view of British history, comedy and pop tunes I really hoped we
might embrace the Olympic ideal and open up the Closing to a broader
global view of things. But when Timothy Spall came on as Churchill I
thought, "Oh God !" Thank heavens for the Brazilians !
The one thing I will praise - sound aside - was the lighting design and
effects which were magnificent....That said, Roll on Rio !

[Sam Slater]

The first hour wasn't very good. All the singers and even the instruments seemed a little out of tune so I'm guessing there was a technical fault somewhere that was fixed later on.

Apart from that it was, again, great. Glad they fit in a little fashion because it was beginning to look like the only export we have to offer is music. Still no room for two of the biggest selling British bands of all time in: Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones. The Queen, John Lennon and Who bits were best. Fantastic.

Sorry, Mr. Shabby, but all the papers (from all political sides) hailed it as fantastic and if you'd been following twitter when it was on you'd see what not only the public but people from other nations were saying about it too. The first hour aside, they all loved it.

So yeah.....it's just you. And what you doing watching the ceremony anyway? I told you to read up on science and evolution, ready for your college course starting in September. Knuckle down!

[Sam Slater]

I forgot about Timothy Spall. He seems to have got in in his head that he can do a good Churchill (The King's Speech). He can't.

[Bob Singleton]

I though overall it was damned good... I'm not a fan of Take That or One Direction, but even I realise that if it's to be a potted history of 40 or so years worth of British music, they had to play their part. As Sam Slater says, shame that Led Zep and the Rolling Stones never got a mention, given the tens if not hundreds of millions of records they've sold throughout the world