NBC has already altered Olympic reality enough to make you think beach volleyball is a much greater sport than dozens of others (dominated by foreigners) who never made their prime time replay.
Accordingly, the network that delays, cuts and presents hours later the live events of the games, did about the same thing for the closing ceremony.
In the stadium, a highlight must have been Ray Davies singing his Kinks classic, “Waterloo Sunset,” one of the great valentines to the hosting city London. But in the U.S. it never existed, wiped out by another five minute commercial break or the inclusion of “Stomp.”
Instead, a closing ceremony dedicated to 50 years of British music concentrated more on one hit wonders like Madness, Pet Shop Boys, One Direction or Take That. Since Paul McCartney closed the opening ceremony, there wasn’t much left of the Beatles, save for an “Imagine” by a children’s choir and old footage of John Lennon; and an out of place version of “I Am the Walrus” by comic Russell Brand.
The Bee Gees seemed to get more time with a revival of “You Should Be Dancing” by the three contemporary British artists who got the crowd (and athletes) going, Jessie J, Taio Cruz and Tiney Tempeh.
Jessie J returned in a different nude body suit to take up the Freddie Mercury vocals on the inevitable Queen portion. The Pink Floyd nod was a mangy ragtag group that included Mike Rutherford and Nick Mason, who could have been saying to the rest of the band: “Wish You Were Here.”
A strange, discoey period of British music was celebrated most, with Annie Lennox, George Michael and especially the Spice Girls doing full performances. The latter was the climax of the event, which should give you some indication of where this history was going.
It was one where Kaiser Chefs did a Who song in NBC’s primetime that was already a botched salute to the mod (“Pinball Wizard” is hardly from the Who’s mod period) and the Who themselves were relegated to past midnight for the “after party.”
Similarly Bowie was absent when his “Fashion” was played for a pointless salute to British fashion and models. And so were any of the Stones, Beatles, Animals and, as it turned out, Kinks (and completely left out of this supposed rock overview, the vitality of the punk movement in the UK).
You were almost expecting Right Said Fred or Frankie Goes to Hollywood the way things were going. There was a Kate Bush segment, apparently, using a recording of “Running up That Hill” but it also didn’t make the U.S. cut.
Eric Idle singing the Monty Python song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” did make it though and almost made you forget the many other lapses of the night.