You'd think that a British music themed closing ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics would have thrilled me. It should have thrilled me. Instead it left me bored and sometimes cringing.
The spectacle reminded me of the over the top gaudiness of the movie version of Tommy. And speaking of The Who, really? Didn't the creators of this see their half time performance at the Super Bowl?
The only thing that amused me was imagining most Americans looking at the TV and wondering "who's that" half the time. It was a good way to showcase the difficulty some British artists have in making it big in the United States. There were the Kaiser Chiefs covering The Who. I don't think the NBC team ever even mentioned the band name.
Hearing Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" was nice. Another head scratcher for most Americans. It's too bad she doesn't perform live anymore.
And what was NBC thinking? A big chunk of the closing ceremonies was shown at midnight. That's when the remnants of The Who played and when Ray Davies of The Kinks performed his classic "Waterloo Sunset". The only people who would see it were either insomniacs or those of us like me who grabbed the remote to DVR it when Costas said, we'll have more after your local news...because now we want to show you this lousy new sitcom. Well, he didn't say the last part but I'm sure that's what he was thinking.
