Starting as we'd always only dreamt of going on (a handful of oddly predated kick-abouts aside – coincidentally the tickets I've been frantically tapping away at) that old courter of unashamedly controlled controversy, Danny Boyle, did me, you and GB proud with an Opening Ceremony to tickle a trickle of tear or ten. Regrettably we eluded any live coverage, what with it being Camp Bestival etc. so that Glastonbury be referenced as one of innumerable intricately purveyed patriotic archetypes seemed rather apt as I relived what proved momentarily magical on yet another great British institution: iPlayer. Evidently it's all too easy to assume an equivocal jingoism in light of these sorts of cultural coming-togethers; a scan of the above illuminates as much. But the whole shebang's become genuinely exciting, as we optimistically trawl listings hourly even in the ambition of attending sports hitherto unplumbed. Handball, for instance: wholly electrifying.
Yet to return to the rather more known entity of the Opening Ceremony, Boyle could surely not have galvanised any more mood for what is, essentially, a bit of a corporate snooze. And arguably, if a little contradictorily given the sum expenditure of ≈£27mil, the element to have contributed to this most efficaciously was the soundtrack. Not Turner et al. balderdashing through a slipshod Beatles cover, nor Macca and a newly rejuvenated fop bobbing to a few stanzas from The End, nor even that excruciating British music through the ages medley. No, it was Karl Hyde and more pertinently Rick Smith who infused the thing with some chafed, yet bemusingly comforting emotivity. Along with a heck of a load of High Contrast.
Although from an Underworld viewpoint they may now be renowned for more than Born Slippy; as more than mere past it practitioners of house-founded, once progressive techno. Amid the commotion of that devastating Industrial Revolution-inspired opening gambit, the tumultuous rhythms; the builds and fades more scrupulously constructed than the stadium itself; the general cacophony of harmony to And I Will Kiss instantly rendered the irrefutably beautiful oeuvre their most accomplished to date. Then, to restore an iota of faith in our antiquated album chart system praxis, Isles of Wonder – the soundtrack to the ceremony – bolted for the summit like Usain fleeing the Puma marketing team, €s fading in glinting German eyes.
The BBC captured the show resolutely however – captured perhaps the key term as they've since kept all coverage ensnared under their jurisdiction – and during its minute's silence, as poppies quivered against oily despondency to the tune of that unforgettable refrain whistled, beery droplets began to seep from reddened sclera. And as with any seminal scoring, repetition and recurrence then proved critical. Thus when he of Two Door Cinema Club emerged (inevitably, a rub of puffed eyeballs promptly ensued) to mope seraphically through Caliban's Dream alongside Dame Evelyn Glennie, the resurgence of that poignant melody seemed utterly show-stopping. Hyde and Smith had not merely acutely pinpointed the latter's most preeminent moment thus far in an already quite illustrious career, but went on to stitch this most elegant of strains into this, their only other chief composition. Southwark's Dockhead Choir augment its intrinsic schmaltz somewhat although its overall cherubic celestia is as enlightening as any six-figure fireworks; as moving as the mudded hand of a child plaintively brushing through Flanders corn (imagery inevitably employed in Boyle's opening montage).
Personal irrelevance may have been established this past week, although in it lies a profound reverence. For athletic individuals; for the United Kingdom; for exercise; for Underworld; for handball. Thus it momentarily feels as though I'll be forever in deeper reverence praise of these Olympic Games.
London 2012.
