The Spice Girls spice up our life at the Olympic closing ceremony
Monday 13 August 2012
The closing ceremony of the London 2012 Games lived up to its billing as ‘the world’s greatest after-party’ last night after wowing its global audience with a spectacular celebration of British music and culture.
Danny Boyle’s critically acclaimed opening ceremony, which hit our screens just over two weeks ago, was always going to be a hard act to follow but with outstanding performances from some of Britain’s biggest pop stars – both old and new – the last leg of what has been an incredible Olympic games was a resounding hit.
Some of the biggest names in UK music including The Spice Girls and Tinie Tempah partied with the thousands of athletes and volunteers in the breath taking show that ended with the extinguishing of the Olympic flame.
The three-hour show, which was watched by an estimated one billion viewers, began with an iconic chime from Big Ben before making way for the likes of Annie Lennox, George Michael, The Pet ShopBoys, Kaiser Chiefs, Eric Idle, The Who and One Direction who took to the stage to celebrate one of the nation’s strongest cultural exports over the last 50 years.
Although the closing ceremony is renowned as the less loved party of the two, directors Kim Gavin and David Arnold made sure that Britain would hand over the Olympic flag to Rio de Janeiro with a bang. Arnold said that he had whittled down the Guinness Book of Hit Singles to thirty tracks for a curtain closer that would be a celebration of British music, and that he did.
In what was probably the most anticipated performance of the night, the world saw The Spice Girls perform as they reunited for the first time since 2007 and they didn’t disappoint.
Even Victoria Beckham got into the swing of things as they stormed onto the stage on top of five black cabs to a rapturous applause. Performing their first smash hit single Wannabe before busting out an energetic dance move to Spice Up Your Life, it was like they never went away. And it seemed as though it wasn’t just the 90’s kids that were enjoying their childhood heroes perform, as the camera panned to the audience, we all caught a glimpse of Mayor Boris Johnson getting his groove on!
Geri Halliwell took to twitter to thank fansafter the performance. She tweeted: 'That was amazing!!!! Thank you all , we love you!!xx'.
Victoria seemed equally thrilled with the performance, and posted anadorable snap of the quintet cuddled up together on her Twitter page along with the caption: 'We did it!! I love u girls so much!!!!! xxx vb'.
Victoria Beckham tweeted this adorable pic as she reunited with her old band
As well as The Spice Girls great performance, fellow 90’s band Take That took to the stage to round things off with their infamous hit single Rule The World. Rumours surfaced that Gary Barlow was going to pull out due to family tragedy, but he put on a brave face and pulled off a great performance with his band.
Even those that couldn’t be there sent their holograms - John Lennon was represented by video and a giant piecemeal cast of his face, designed by his widow Yoko Ono, as children sang and signed "Imagine", while Freddie Mercury roused the crowd virtually with a call-and-response routine.
Jessie J, Tinie Tempah, One Direction and Taio Cruz also pulled off great performances really showing the diversity and popularity of British pop music as athletes from all over the world sang along.
David Beckham caught up with Liam Gallagher who performed with new band Beady Eye
Bidding farewell to these games is not going to be easy, but these Olympics have left some cracking music ringing in our ears for some time to come. What a party!
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