What the Olympic Opening Ceremony Really Needs...
Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 12:01AM
If I was planning an Olympics opening ceremony, that's the route I would go. I don't think the host country needs to go into mass hock to do a good show. I'm just not sure which bands I'd choose for my opening concert. I know one thing, though: there would be no lip synching! All the performers during the opening ceremonies faked the lyrics, making me crazy!
So who would be good for an Olympics concert? The bands would need to appeal to everyone and diverse age groups and no - they couldn't be all metal. I'm thinking a fair mix of all sorts of music: metal, world, pop, you name it. I guess I'd throw some indie band in too just to make the hipsters happy. Probably the easiest way to choose is to pick the most successful recording artists from the host country and go from there. In that case, I'd start with Rush...who would you add to the bill?
Reader Comments (15)
...Kidz! However you want to get a hold of the following, please do... but it's an absolute must for anyone who wants to add something seriously killer Glam Metal to their iTunes or whatever the h*ll it is you insist on using... Here it is... Kick Axe's cover of Humble Pie's classic "Thirty Days In The Hole". Absolutely the killerest of the killer!
It was on the "Up The Creek" soundtrack along with a couple of non-lp cuts by Cheap Trick that have now subsequently been released. But this has never been put on CD, so I'll leave it out there for you to snag however you can, Heavy Metal Detectors that you are...
Now, back to the Dullympics, much as I personally despise Rush, they are THE band, as far as Canada is concerned. The Olympic Committee should have commissioned Rush to do an 10 minute magnum opus kind of instrumental piece for the opening ceremonies.
You know, the kind of overblown prog rock they were tricked into doing when they mistakenly listened to Neil Peart and went that route, eventually losing their true Metal edge.
Look, again, this goes back to the my adage I keep intermittently espousing here...
"I don't have to like it whether it's good or not and in the case of these over excessively complex showboaters, their brand of prog rock meanderings would be ideal for this sort of thing.
But ixnay on the Alvin and the Chipmunks vocals of Giddy Lee and don't forget the dual 32 piece orchestras you could set up on either side of Peart's comically oversized drum kit.
And by all means, let Peart have his way with one of his trademark bullsh*t gargantuan drum solos.
There are much more killer Canadian bands who would probably have needed to reform in order to participate, but, thusly, would have rocked both the opening and closing ceremonies, if only we could live in the Metal world we all envision here (don't forget our Metal Television idea we got cookin' in the comments section on Al's MTV post here, haha!!).
Other notable Canadian acts, aside from Kick Axe, who really could have shown their stuff are the comedy troupe, Triumph, as well as the much better but not properly recognized, Brighton Rocks and Killer Dwarfs, among others.
Speaking of others, I gotta run right now (not literally, unfortunately. I'm using the excuse of it being to cold to run on the beach these days. You wouldn't believe how cold it is down here in Florida right now.
It frickin' suxx! Anywho, my point is, if you've got any Kanadian Karacterz to add to our pile of great Canadian Metal Bands please throw 'em on. If I don't see any when I get back from drivin' my Dad's Mercedes 135 mph. up to the grocery store, I'll see what I can dig up out of ye ol' Metal Memory Banx. Later... Screeeech... Vrrooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmetal!
Okay, I'm back...
Hahaha!!!, boyz, you are all so right!
I love 'em all and the fact that Christian duz not want Triumph to "Lay It On The Line", argh!, so true, my fellow Metaloid! And I've got the albums for all of 'em, even joiks, Triumph, unfortunately. Hey, call it the completist in me.
Yeah, so, Christian, I mean, talk about a band without anything going on, just by the numberz, generock with slight metal references (note I used a small "m" for them when I usually use an "M" when talkin' about the Metal WE love!)...
...that would be Triumph or shall we rename 'em "Failure"...
I got that "import" DVD of US Festival '83, Metal Day" and Triumph are just totally laffable, though competent in every way on there, but missin' something (like originality, charisma, and excitement, other than that they're great, not!) thinkin' they are such hot sh*t and then being obliterated by the formidable likes of Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, Motley Crue and Scorpions...
Sarzo is particularly hilarious during Quiet Riot and you can check out the clips on YouTube.
And Priest is so killer at this show, too. Just killer tunes and performance, particularly the choreography, K.K. and Glenn as Halford's guitar slaves and Halford, well, as Halford, totally comical with his strange hand gestures and little skips backwards across the stage. Funny when you look back on it now, you can totally see what he's all about, if you know what I mean.
Motley is just sinister kick-a*s on here, too, never so Glam and never so killer, "Livewire" being the absolute highlight of their set.
And the Scorps are totally killarious on this, as you can see at the end, when they all pile on, Explorer prongs sticking out everywhere from the clump of arms and legs rolling around on the stage with Rudy Schenker comin' out of it and servin' up his Flyin' V to ya on a silver platter during the grand finale's never-ending ending.
Go to YouTube and watch all the clips, paticularly to study the stagecraft of Sarzo, Halford and Schenker, if ya haven't seen the US Festival '83 Metal Day stuff already and you'll know what I mean, though I could watch it over and over again, which, again, is obviously cooler with the DVD on a big screen...
And if you really want to study something for the sake of comparison and contrast, study the studied mediocrity of Triumph. What utter borefests when compared to the other exciting bands on the same bill.
Of course, there are morons that actually prefer this sort of thing to something good, which is totally strange to me, but there are so many people like that out there. You know the type: "Don't be gettin' fancy on me, boy!, jes gimme ma Lynyrd Skynyrd current lineup and I'll be on my way" straight to pergutory.
So, check out the clips or better yet, if you want to get a really pretty good quality document of the it, the DVD soundz great and will look pretty dang good on the big screen. I so want that Sony Bravia XBR 70" LCD HDTV to Rock out with. Imagine Metalmania on that sucker! Hey, it's only only $19,999.99! But once you put on this $12.99 CD or, say, Led Zeppelin, "DVD", it will be worth every frickin' penny...
Okay, I just went on HeavyHarmonies.com (which I consider cheating, hahaha!!!) to find out the other cool Canadian Heavy Metallists and believe it or not, though you boyz did mention a lot of the heavy hitters, there are a few more. HeavyHarmonies.com is great as it is very imformative since it lists bands by Country.
Here's what I got, too, including the one's we have already listed... They could do a "We Are The World"/"Stars" kinda thing xcept make it "We Are Canada" for the Solimpics, but of course, in our Metal vision of a world, so Celine Dion (a Canadian), pleeze stay home, er...
...um...I mean, inside your house. And, yes, though I agree with Christian, we should include Triumph and my pet peeve, Rush, for the sake of completeness in terms of an accurate Metal picture of Canada...
Here they are... a drum roll, Neil, pleeze, but that's all (puleez!)...
Canadian Metal:
> Alias (Cheez Metal/AOR Specialists)
> April Wine (okay, they're annoying but "Roller" is a guilty pleasure of mine, what can I tell ya)
> Big House
> Brighton Rock (not Brighton Rock"S", like the rock"S" in my head for adding an "S" on the end of the name of the band in my last entry.
> Lee Aaron. Killer Metal Chick of the 80's
> Dirty Rhythm (theez guyz are killer, guyz)
> Gypsy Rose (killer, too!)
> Kick Axe (kick a*s!)
> Killer Dwarfs (one of my faves, totally!)
> Moxy (more hard rock and 70's but still amazing)
> Nasty
> Aldo Nova (can't sing a note but "Fantasy" is still noteable for it's high cheeze factor and crunch chordz. Just have him on guitar behind everyone else, don't let him sing... argh!).
> Paradise (HMH lists this as AOR but I think they are Metal)
> Saints & Sinners (killer!)
> Slash Puppet
> Slik Toxik (cool)
> Chrissy Steele (another killer Metal Chick)
> Sven Gali (killer and hilarious, tho, unintentionally, I believe)
> Von Groove (phenomenal, but a little on the AOR-ish side)
> White Wolf
There are others but thoze are the ones I have, so I can pretty much vouch for 'em, if you trust my judgement, hahaha!!!
So, it would have been cool if the Canadians had realized to whack together something with all of 'em and with Rush and the dual 23 piece orchestra's being the centerpiece, but hey, this ain't Metal World, unfortunately.
But they could have had Rush commissioned to do one of their Prog Rock jobs for the opening ceremony for thoze Indians they had on there jumpin' around, rather than whatever the h*ll it was they were makin' 'em dance to...
So, again HeavyHarmonies.com is a great site for it's global nutshelling summaries of nearly every "Melodic" Metal band (Glam/Sleaze/AOR Metal) in existence, tho the graphix are totally ghetto and it duzn't have a point of view like this site duz, Al's inimitable bringbackglam.com, where there's a lot more goin' on, for example her super valuable Glam Metal news and analysis, highlighting discoveries both new and old, opinion and killer komments by one and all like you boyz, discounting the nutzo meanderingz of moi.
To be honest that's why I don't really check out any other sites per se, maybe heavymetalharmonies.com occasionally to remind myself or find out more about a band, or sleazeroxx.com for some news or Noisecreep for our fearless leader's stories, and updates of all things Metal, but it's all really right here, the best site on the planet, as far as I'm concerned, which is why I enjoy camping out on it so much here in the comments section.
That is if Al and you guyz don't mind and wouldn't rather I just shut up, I'll be hangin'...
Are you cool with that, Fletch?
Triumph were at Rocklahoma, and I fell asleep - terrible. I have the DVD of metal day, tho. Very cool stuff.
Dammit - there's a 70 inch TV out ? My 65 inch is no longer the biggest you can get ?
Rudy Sarzo on the other hand... What a bada*s!
Have a Heavy Metal Valentine's everybody!
p.s. Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention Canadian band Reckless (who Al highlighted here not too long ago. And of course, Helix, who Mike mentioned. Tell me that singer from Helix couldn't have jumped down off the stage during the opening ceremony and ripped that stuck lid off and yanked that stuck fourth "pole" from underneath the floor so that chick coulda lit it!
http://www.rushisaband.com/display.php?id=2071
They're under the name Spectre General. the film producers thought Kick Axe wouldn't be a kid friendly name, puh,
The songs are Nothin's Gonna Stand in Our way and Hunger. Awesomness!
Too bad they didn't fit Rush in. Really, is their brand of schmaltz prog rock not gonna fit? Man, that's crazy, as much as I can't stand Rush, they would have been fine. They even coulda dedicated it to the poor kid, geeez! Even after all these years Rock'n'Roll can still get so unfairly maligned.
You never cease to amaze me with your knowledge, bro!
And the fact that you are always right! The producers shoulda told Cheap Trick to do a blow out cover of Lion's version of "Transformers". Granted, they did keep pieces of the original and then did a spin on it.
Not that Cheap Trick's semi-cover of it is bad, mind you, but maybe not as dynamic. What's ironic is in an interview not too long ago when Trick was doing press to promote the Soundtrack album, they remarked (Rick and Robin) that "some band, Lion did it" and that they had to "do something better than that".
Well, really, Rick? As much as I love ya and have seen Cheap Trick like 8 times beginning with 3 times in '79 alone, you're off on this one.
Lion's version is immortal.
Cheap Trick's is, well, "solid".
Which would you rather be?