{"id":14945,"date":"2012-08-13T17:48:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T21:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=14945"},"modified":"2012-08-14T00:07:07","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T04:07:07","slug":"la-la-londinium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/la-la-londinium\/","title":{"rendered":"La La Londinium"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_14958\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14958\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14958\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-14958\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Which one&#039;s Spice?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It was with great trepidation that I tuned into the Olympics closing ceremonies concert late last evening. It was bound to not rock, but I can&#8217;t resist any chance to see what&#8217;s left of <strong>The Who<\/strong>, and somewhere I saw a rumor that <strong>Kate Bush<\/strong> would perform, which would have been quite a rare thing.<\/p>\n<p>What did you think of it? Was anything worth your while? Who was lip syncing? Here&#8217;s my jar full of 2 cents:<\/p>\n<p>I watched some of the Olympics off and on. The track and field is my favorite. I am amazed at the power of the sprinters and the sustained pace of the distance runners.<\/p>\n<p>Overall: A strange trip. It was as bad as you might expect but worth a few moments. Fortunately the fast-forward button worked. God Save the Queen.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14960\" style=\"width: 221px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14960\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14960\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium4-211x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"211\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium4-211x300.jpg 211w, https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium4.jpg 418w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-14960\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">It&#039;s a long way from the RTH Sizzler.<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Madness, &#8220;Our House&#8221; on a trailer. Blur cover marching band. Color-coded dancers around dinner tables. WTF?<\/li>\n<li>Pet Shop Boys. Now that&#8217;s what I call stage presence. &lt;&#8211; Internet sarcasm alert.<\/li>\n<li>Stomp. Too long. ENOUGH ALREADY. I KNOW YOU DO NOT HAVE ALL 85 BROOMS MIC&#8217;ED UP.<\/li>\n<li>Parade of athletes enters. Every single one is recording it on their camera or phone or iPad. Not wanting to offend the paying sponsors, Olympic committee says &#8220;Put tape over that Apple logo!&#8221;. Later, when singers are parading around in Bentleys celebrating money, Olympic committee says &#8220;Put tape over that Bentley insignia!&#8221; because BMW is paying for this.<\/li>\n<li>Lennon, &#8220;Imagine,&#8221; first with clich\u00e9 child choir, then John on jumbotron. Yes, I cannot help tearing up when I see and hear it. At least they didn&#8217;t let some jerk singer &#8220;fix&#8221; the lyrics like that other time.<\/li>\n<li>George Michael, &#8220;Freedom.&#8221; Not a fan, but the song has a good groove.<\/li>\n<li>A quick Bowie hits\/fashion montage, then celebrating British &#8220;Fashion&#8221; with the song on tape. It seemed to be the extended Fripp solo version. Disappointed not to see a surprise visit by the man himself. The whole sequence was the most incongruous of all. Parade of gold-dressed supermodels on the runway. Suck it, stupid athletes, you are too fat for the runway!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14961\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14961\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14961\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium2-300x195.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium2-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium2.jpg 618w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-14961\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not!<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Annie Lennox, &#8220;Little Bird.&#8221; She is one of the great voices, but man, what a weird stage production, hiding her power. It looked made for Adam and the Ants. Cut to commercial as something was about to happen as she dismounted the goth ship.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Wish You Were Here.&#8221; Another sentimental favorite. Well done with only 1 Floyd (drummer Mason). Lead guitar was the big omission. Very clever ending with the tightrope walker doing the album cover. Didn&#8217;t see that one coming.<\/li>\n<li>Silly wonka Russell Brand presumably lip syncing &#8220;I Am the Walrus.&#8221; Putting aside the vocal, it was a fairly faithful instrumental track, right down to the feel of Ringo&#8217;s drum track which is AWESOME by the way. But an embarrassing broadway musical style acting accompaniment.<\/li>\n<li>Fat Boy Slim. Quite a little rave set. My only question is, when is it considered pantomiming when a &#8220;DJ&#8221; &#8220;plays&#8221; his &#8220;songs&#8221; in a &#8220;performance&#8221; like this? I&#8217;m pretty sure the musical performance consisted of a sound engineer pressing PLAY.<\/li>\n<li>Unfamiliar Jessie J, rappers in Bentleys. Bee Gees cover. Fast forward. I&#8217;m pretty sure she was wearing a wardrobe malfunction-proof flesh colored onesie.<\/li>\n<li>Spice Girls &#8220;reunion.&#8221; I know this is so wrong of me to say on several levels, especially in The Hall, but: I think Ginger Spice lost some weight and looks hot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14962\" style=\"width: 296px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14962\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14962\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium31-286x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"286\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium31-286x300.jpg 286w, https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/londinium31.jpg 618w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-14962\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hot!<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Liam Gallagher and band playing &#8220;Wonderwall.&#8221; Good lord his vocal style is awfully atonally nasal. Also, I&#8217;ve always wondered WTF a wonderwall is other than a ripoff of a George Harrison album title.<\/li>\n<li>Eric Idle sings the great &#8220;Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,&#8221; and when NBC bleeps the line &#8220;life&#8217;s a piece of shit&#8221; they fail to cover the reverberation, so that was good.<\/li>\n<li>The way they sort of projected a live concert Freddie Mercury call-and-response segment onto the stage worked well and the audience probably felt like he was there with them. Brian May got like 3 full minutes to fill the place with great solo guitar noise full of echo and feedback wailing before the obligatory &#8220;We Will Rock You.&#8221; That was cool.<\/li>\n<li>Now it&#8217;s 2016 Brazil&#8217;s turn for a bit, but without David Byrne curating Caetano Veloso or Jorge Ben or Gilberto Gil for me I am a bit lost. Nice to see Pele.<\/li>\n<li>Closing speech. Some former boy band not looking so boyish closes out the set. Weak.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Who&#8221; appeared on some extra late nite segment my DVR caught, which seems to have been the real closer. &#8220;Baba O&#8217;Riley&#8221; first. Roger had to alter a couple of high notes but generally nailed it. They were definitely playing live. The drummer looks like that hobbit\/<em>Lost<\/em> actor. I noticed two annoying lyric changes. &#8220;Don&#8217;t cry \/ just raise your eyes \/ There&#8217;s more than teenage wasteland.&#8221; Uh, is that more Olympicky or something? A couple of <em>Tommy<\/em> songs. Then, rearranging and repeating the lines of &#8220;My Generation&#8221; so as to leave out the &#8220;Hope I die before I get old.&#8221; I mean, isn&#8217;t that sort of the signature lyric of the song? Next time, pick a different song if you can&#8217;t sing this one. There&#8217;s plenty of great stuff in the catalog to choose from.<\/li>\n<li>No Kate Bush after all. You suck, Olympics! &lt;&#8211; Not really, OK? USA women&#8217;s sprinters kicked ass.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/la-la-londinium\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/la-la-londinium\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/la-la-londinium\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/la-la-londinium\/4\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">4<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was with great trepidation that I tuned into the Olympics closing ceremonies concert late last evening. It was bound to not rock, but I can&#8217;t resist any chance to see what&#8217;s left of The Who, and somewhere I saw a rumor that Kate Bush would perform, which would have been quite a rare thing. <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/la-la-londinium\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1867,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,16],"tags":[223,200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1867"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}