Vancouver Olympics closing ceremony features Nickelback, Neil Young, Avril Lavigne, and even William Shatner
The Vancouver Olympics have ended on a celebratory note at B.C. Place.
Tonight's closing ceremony got off to a raucous start with Nikki Yanofsky, Derek Miller, and Eva Avila singing "Let's Have a Party" as the athletes entered the stadium.
Neil Young sang his classic "Long May You Run", and there were also appearances by three Canadian actors: William Shatner, Catherine O'Hara, and Michael J. Fox.
As expected, the B.C.-based band Nickelback performed, singing their hit "Burn It to the Ground".
Tonight's closing ceremony also featured Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson turning over the Olympic flag to Anatoly Pakhomov, mayor of Sochi, which is the Russian city that will host the 2014 Winter Games. Russian culture was featured, just as the Canadians were given time to put on a show during the 2006 closing ceremony in Torino.
In addition, Canadian musicians Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morissette, Simple Plan, Hedley, Marie-Mai, and La Bottine Souriante took the stage at different times.
The evening closed with k-os performing "Eye Know Something". He was accompanied by scores of hip-hop dancers from XXS, NON, and Hip Hop Youth of Vancouver.
Straight staff writer and editor Brian Lynch will file an Olympic Journal column on this site later this evening offering his impressions of the closing ceremony.
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Comments
They stank to high heaven and once again made Canadians out to be cliched refugees from the airport giftshop.Canada is a lot more than Mounties,Beavers,maple syrup,and lumberjacks..Gimme a break..How about a closing ceremony that doesn't reduce us all to tired stereotypes?
Oh ...and didn't Alanis Morrisette give up her Canadian citizenship to become a Yankee...yes she did!
Yeeeeech.
3 words to describe the stink-fest
Stink,stank,stunk.
Canada is awesome...believe in that!!!
More than a few times his honking would have been appropriate.
SMBs
The closing ceromonies were actually like some frantic, poorly constructed afterthought, like "Holy shit!! here we spent 200 gazillion dollars and we FORGOT all about the closing ceromoniies!! ok, let's see if we can fool the world with a bunch of idiotic Canadian stereotype and cliches and garish sensationalism"
WTF?????
If Canada gained any footing on the world's theater this past 17 days, it was quickly dashed in the couple of hours everyone was forced to watch the great big F*cking beaver, inflatable moose and the like.
I will just BET you, this was all Gordo.. the event was a clownish as he has been.
The best part of the night was the very beginning when Canada poked fun at itself for the technical difficulties at the end of the opening ceromonies. The "here, make fun of us" should have stopped there.
People who watch alot of TV, read the corporate papers, and listen to the radio stations owned by the same three corporations that own the papers and TV stations, are conditioned to mistake and embrace fabricated media propagated illusions for reality, and to celebrate fabricated "victories" that, ultimately, signify only the degree to which people have been successfully assimilated into a virtual "pseudo-reality" that allows them to be perfectly manipulated for the benefit of a tiny but highly clever and ambitious elite. Sports fans are in many ways like trained seal. They cheer on cue, roar on cue, clap on cue, jeer on cue, drink on cue, talk on cue, and even feel euphoric on cue.
It says they played "burn it to the ground"
The lyrics from last night's Nickelback song include:
"we got no class, no taste, no shirt and shit faced"
Sounds like your typical Olympic partier. I'm cool with that.
No so cool with cancelling 10,000 MRI visits or chopping arts and social programs to overpay for a big showy drunk and for equipping police state fascists.
SMBs
I could name dozens of bands I like but that might have distracted from my main point about Rock being the music of rebellion that grew out of a passion to resist the plastic and hypocritical xian/puritanical/racist morality that was being pushed down our throats by an evil and corrupt military/industrial complex that is still working overtime to turn peoples brains to mush while they poison and steal.
I'll never forget the faces of people who had just been treated to a taste of million watt vicious honesty delivered by Black Sabbath at an outdoor concert in a Toronto suburb in 1972. In this world where the genocides of tobacco, unbalanced pharmaceuticals, processed and junk foods, and depleted uranium munitions are sold as progress, convenience and democracy...I'll rely on the full throttle emotions of rock music (art rock, prog rock, hard rock etc.) for grounding and truth.
The Straight should sponsor a concert by Jeff Martin's Exile and the Kingdom. Why hasn't anybody tried to lure Robbie Robertson to Vancouver for a concert? It's been decades, n'est ce pas?
SMBs
Whoever decided to book Simple Plan and Avril Lavigne should be fired.
HOPE NONE OF THEM WERE PAID FOR THEIR LIPSYNCING
PERFORMACES.
The poking-fun-at-ourselves approach only works if it's funny and it was not. There was some pity laughs but that's about it. Neil Young was great but he sang a song about a car. And Nickleback?! Really??
There was a joke last year that the ceremonies would be just Anne Murray onstage by herself sining "SnowbIrd". It wasn't that far off.
What really makes me hang my head is knowing that it was the second most-watched broadcast in history. We have a chance like that and we think "Hey, let's make fun of ourselves."
It was like telling knock-knock jokes at a frat party. LAME
Agreed. Avril's songs were not at ALL in keeping with the theme. The first was brooding and self-pitying. The only thing that fit could have been the title "So much for my happy endings", although it could have been happy had you chosen a good song to sing. It's about a girl feeling rejected??
Even Hedley, who I can't stand, had I thought a great song that fit way better given the event "bring that Cha Ching", bout 'bringing it', which a lot of the athletes did.
My biggest question? Where was Mrs. Canada?? (aka Celine?) She probably demanded too much money, but to not be in either the opening or closing ceremonies? She's one of our most internationally known celebrities right now. To bring out Alanis, who really hasn't been influential in over 10 years? That was weird, although her song was beautiful (I wasn't entirely sure she was singing, actually).
During the Games:
Millions more cut from student grant program
$10 million more cut from Ministry of Families and Children
Elderly wait even longer for operations to relieve pain
Yes, some Canadians have principles.
Chopper, have you ever heard the quote, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
Thank you for removing all doubt.
And stop with the whining, the comedian parts of the closing ceremony where actually sarcastic, they where trying to show everyone that the stereo-typical points of Canada are not true. So stop whining about the damn closing ceremony's, they where fine in every way, and for those of you who think Alanis was not singing, your wrong, yet again.
HAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
SEE YOU AT THE TRAILER PARK BOYS. SAY HI TO JULIAN FOR ME LOL