I’m altering my post format this week due to what was breaking and ground-shaking stuff from Friday.

Friday was the official launch of the 2024 Summer Olympics, being held in Paris, France. This was obviously going to be a big deal from the jump, with Paris being one of the world’s most renowned and historical cities, the place has more culture in the cracks of its sidewalks than some entire nations have. But boy howdy I was not prepared for just how impactful it would be.

While some sporting events get going days before the festivities, the true start of the Olympics is the opening ceremonies. This usually involves the athletes marching into a stadium, some pageantry associated with the host country, some speeches and lighting a fire. I do personally love the Olympics but I often pass on the opening ceremony, generally nothing there for me.

But Paris went out of their way to command attention on Friday. The ceremony was not held in a stadium – rather it was spread out across the city, mostly along the River Seine where the athletes floated in a boat parade. The ceremony was a series of performances, filmed pieces and other bits strung together over a few hours.

Among the performances was that of long-running heavy metal act Gojira. They have been an active unit since the mid-90’s and rose to prominence in the metal scene in the mid-2000’s, and through the 2010’s became one of the biggest and most revered acts within metal. But their performance on Friday put them on a stage no act that can be considered extreme metal has ever been anywhere near.

Gojira did a take on a song from the French Revolution called Ça Ira, which translates to “it’ll be fine.” Gojira also teamed up with singer Marina Viotti, who has performed both opera and heavy metal through her career.

The performance was held on the Conciergerie building, which was once a royal building but was used to house royal prisoners during the Revolution. Marie Antoinette was a famous resident of the prison, and a headless guise of the former queen kicked off the performance.

Gojira played while standing in various windows of the Conciergerie, with other headless effigies of Antionette in other windows. Viotti was on a mock ship that was “floating” by the building, though not actually on the nearby river. The performance was of the highest production and also bombast, with flames shooting and a red mist of fireworks let off at the end, likely to symbolize the beheadings famous during the Revolution.

The entire Opening Ceremonies have been the talk of the world since Friday, with many in awe of the sheer craziness of the show, and others critical of certain aspects. Some, perhaps rightfully, were down on the somewhat disjointed nature of the whole thing and how it didn’t really play out watching in person, it was much more of a TV event. Others found less logical arguments to stew in, I won’t bother getting into those.

For Gojira this was a huge moment. Sure the band are well regarded across the metal landscape and are one of the more successful bands in heavy metal, but this was the Olympics. It’s one of the biggest stages anyone could ever perform on and is seen worldwide by many millions, if not billions. The US ratings indicate at least 26 million people watched.

Heavy metal has never been on a stage that big. Some bands have played massive festivals, but those shows didn’t really have a worldwide audience watching all at once. And especially for anything that can be classified as extreme metal, this is by far the biggest spotlight any band has ever been under.

Now, what will all of this translate to? It’s hard to say. I’m sure Gojira will get a nice bump out of all this. I don’t know if this will carry over to the scene as a whole and I don’t know if this will be any lasting sort of thing or if it’s just a plot point on a timeline, but it is as big as anything ever has been in metal.

Whatever happens, Gojira and Viotti’s performance on Friday was epic. Heavy metal has often been the red-headed stepchild of music but on a day full of talk, this performance stole the show in the eyes of many. I don’t know if this will translate to metal being more incorporated into big time events in the future and I doubt it will, but this was certainly something to behold. Bang your head or lose your head.

NBC and the Olympics famously lock down their footage of this stuff. A YouTube video is available but embedding is not permitted. Follow this link to watch the performance – https://youtu.be/TgzDfVfn6w8?si=FlObnwZuepNOFVFo

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