Closing Ceremony | A dark electro-rock show to “revive” Olympism

(Paris) The organizers of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles have enlivened a previously rather somber closing ceremony of the Paris Games by entrusting the Olympic flag to a movie superstar, Tom Cruise, who abseiled down from the roof of the Stade de France.

The star of Mission: Impossible and of Top Gun then escaped on a motorbike, before a video was released of him carrying the flag to the giant letters “Hollywood” in Los Angeles, the next host city of the Summer Games. All to a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, purveyors of Californian rock for four decades, to mark the passage of the night from Paris to the sun of the Pacific beaches.

The group then appeared on video for a mini-concert filmed from California, before giving way to another local megastar, the singer Billie Eilish, then Snoop Dogg, special correspondent for NBC television and who became a viral icon on the networks outside of Paris, and finally the rap legend D^r Dr.

Los Angeles was expected to line up stars of this caliber, as the opening ceremony of the Paris Games, relocated to the Seine, had set the bar at a stratospheric height, with performances by Lady Gaga, Aya Nakamura and the final comeback of Céline Dion on the Eiffel Tower.

The artistic list on Sunday, for the closing at the Stade de France, was more modest, even if the flagship electro-rock group Phoenix, very popular in the United States, provided the musical part with its guests.

Stadium security had to contain the enthusiasm of some athletes who wanted to stay on stage during the concert. “There was a real moment of panic from the organization [mais] “We were in our element,” two of its members, Thomas Mars and Laurent Brancowitz, told AFP after the show.

Alongside them, the Belgian Angèle came to perform Nightcall by Kavinsky (from the film Drive), and Air, the long-time companions of the French Touch, offered a version of their hit Playground Love (from the movie The Virgin Suicides).

As a link between France and the United States, Yseult concluded the show in style with a performance of My Waya Frank Sinatra classic adapted from a Claude François hit, As per usualwhile another strong voice, that of the American HER, had earlier intoned the American anthem.

Interstellar traveler

Far from the ultra-pop and queer spirit of the opening, relocated along the Seine, the closing show focused on the aerial journey of a golden traveler (Golden Voyageur), straight out of science fiction, arriving by air in a Stade de France plunged into darkness.

Under the golden costume, French breakdancer Arthur Cadre, playing an interstellar traveler who discovers the remains of the Olympic Games, in a distant future where they will have disappeared and will undertake to rebuild them.

The idea of ​​this show, designed by the same artistic team led by Thomas Jolly as the opening, was to celebrate the ancient heritage of the Games, the values ​​of sport, and to evoke the future. The show was served by giant sets, representing the continents, and sophisticated lighting effects.

On a 2400 m stage² : more than a hundred performers, acrobats, dancers and circus artists for a sometimes lugubrious show, mixing dance, contortion, gesture theatre and the influence of street arts. In the most monumental tableau, giant Olympic rings rose into the sky.

Nothing that could a priori cause controversy, two weeks after an unprecedented opening, which celebrated diversity in all its forms. It was widely welcomed but also irritated conservative leaders and standard-bearers of the extreme right.

French Touch

On Sunday, it was a timeless classic that launched the closing festivities, Under the Parisian skysung at the Tuileries for the extinction of the cauldron by one of the most prominent French singers of the moment, Zaho de Sagazan.

A retro and classy moment: with this hymn to the capital and its eternal charms, the 24-year-old artist followed in the footsteps of the greatest voices of song, including Édith Piaf, Yves Montand and Mireille Mathieu. Enough to accompany the extinction of the Olympic cauldron and the departure of the flame, in the hands of quadruple gold medalist swimmer Léon Marchand, for the Stade de France.

This is where the protocol times took place, Marseillaise (performed by the choir of Fontainebleau accompanied by the Divertimento orchestra, an institution of Seine-Saint-Denis), and a parade of athletes all smiles, which the organizers wanted to transform into a giant karaoke, from Aznavour to Queen via Gala.

On the star side, the opening ceremony set the bar very high with Lady Gaga, Aya Nakamura and the final comeback of Céline Dion on the Eiffel Tower.

For the closing, Phoenix, a group from electro-rock very popular in the United States, provided the soundtrack, with its greatest hits, and guests, including the Belgian Angèle, to perform Nightcalla film title by Kavinsky, and Air, the lifelong companions of the French Touch, and their melancholic Playground Love.