The Olympic opening ceremony
Published August 17, 2004
I wrote this as I was watching a part of the opening ceremonies:
I'm watching the opening ceremonty to the 2004 Olympics in Athens. I've got two quick thoughts:
- For starters, someone really needs to muzzle both Katie Couric and Bob Costas. As each country entered the stadium, they gave some commentary. Sometimes, it was both insightful and on topic, like when they would mention some of the medals won in the past. Other times, it was downright embarassing. Listening to them misprounce "Djibouti" and then laugh about it. Or commenting on how the athletes need to "really work at pulling off the traditional costumes." Sheesh.
- Previously, I commented the music for the ceremony being provided by a DJ. I was a little leery about it, but I didn't quite realize how bad it would actually be.
The musical selection played as the last group countries entered the stadium (just prior to Greece) was Agnus Dei. AGNUS DEI!?! A requiem for the dead?!? On what planet is this an appropriate welcome to the sport? It's a great song (3rd track, if you're interested), very moving, but probably just a touch out of place
- The Olympic opening ceremony
- Published: August 17, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Music: Electronica, Video: Film and TV Business, Video: Music, Video: Sports
- Writer: Casper
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I video-blogged clips of various politically relevant countries here, so you can see and hear just how inane their commentary was.
=darwin!
As someone who was at the opening ceremony, I have to say you have no idea what you are talking about when you diss DJ Tiesto. He rocked the stadium. He had 70,000 people wiggling and bumping into eachother in their seats and every prominent athlete in the world nodding heads to his beat. Some of the Africans even stopped in front of his booth to shake down their boogy. That was arguably the best set ever played. Unarguably the biggest audience served by a DJ. Ever.
Stupid and unimaginative. Cows were lame. Ancient greeks probably vomiting.
What do you expect from a culture that murders other cultures( Mussolini) overreacts to everthing, and makes cookies that taste like nothing and think they are great?
uh...mussolini was italian.
Bullhead
If i knew the history of the world, specially the Greek history, and the cookie as well as you, i would kill myself!!!!!!
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You needed to have watched the Opening Ceremony on NBC HD. They used different broadcasts, so we didn't have to hear Costas and Couric.
Secondly, the people on the HD feed were GOOD. When every country came out, they talked about the star athletes for each country without necessarily having to reference the USA, which Costas is KNOWN for doing ("And now, from China, John Cho, who will try to steal a gold from (starts drooling) Michael Phelps)
You need to check out the ceremony on NBC HD. Much better than Costas/Couric crap.