The
London 2012 Olympics came to an end last night with the closing ceremony having
a distinctly Mod theme running through it, emphasising the influence that the
Mod subculture has had on this great nation of ours over the last 50 years or
so.
Early on
in the proceedings we had Madness on a lorry driving round the Olympic stadium
playing ‘Our House’ (whilst Lee Thompson had one of his sax flying moments
again). Shortly after, the whole stadium was jumping and dancing to the sound
of Blur’s ‘Parklife’.
Emerging
from a London black cab in the middle of the stadium, Ray Davies gave the world
a fine performance of ‘Waterloo Sunset’; one of the greatest songs ever written
and quintessentially British.
The
sound of two strokes could be heard as a Mod scooter crusade entered the
stadium and the Kaiser Chiefs gave us their version of Pinball Wizard.
Fantastic to see those Mod’ed up iconic Italian machines and our greatest ever
youth subculture getting the recognition it deserves.
There
was plenty of dross on the night too (including some of the rubbish we all
avoided throughout the eighties) – but I’m not going to dwell on that.
Back to
iconic British classics and you don’t get much better than the great ‘Wonderwall’,
this evening performed by Beady Eye (I wonder what Noel made of that!).
And the
big finish to the whole event came courtesy of The Who, running through a cut
down ‘Baba O’Riley/See Me, Feel Me’ sequence before the magnificent ‘My
Generation’ to end proceedings.
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