NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP
Gojira during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, July 26, 2024.
MUSIC – The Paris 2024 Olympics are coming in their own way. The nominations for the 67th edition of Grammy Awards were announced this Friday, November 8 and offer a great reward to French metal band Gojira in the category best Metal performance of the year.
On February 2, 2025 in Los Angeles, Gojira will come to defend his live performance of the song Mea Culpa (Ah! It’ll be fine!)metal reinterpretation, but not only, of the famous French revolutionary song.
Performed on the north facade of the Conciergerie de Paris, the song ignited the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympicson July 26. But Gojira was not alone for this powerful musical tableau on the site where Marie-Antoinette was held prisoner before being guillotined in 1793.
The French metal band internationally renowned was accompanied by the opera singer Marina Viotti and the Choir of the Orchester de Paris. All supervised by Victor Le Masne, composer and musical director of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies. Two artists logically nominated alongside Gojira for the Grammy this year.
Facing them in this musical category, they will face serious opponents. Judas Priest, Knocked Loose and Poppy, Spiritbox and especially Metallica for the song Screaming Suicide.
An echo of “the history of France”
“First metal band to play in an Olympic ceremony “, as they like to remind us since this audacious and provocative musical performance, Gojira had also participated in there ” parade of champions » on the Champs-Élyséesjust after the end of the Paris Games. Without really being there, since Marina Viotti had come alone to sing to the sound of the group’s instruments.
If the song had sparked some controversy during its first live broadcast, the group brushed aside these controversies against a backdrop of Satanism by recalling that this painting echoed “ the history of France ». “It’s French charm, you know, decapitated people, red wine, blood everywhere, it’s romantic, it’s normal. There is nothing satanic.”
“France is a country which made the separation between the State and the Church during the Revolution », added the singer of the group Joe Duplantier. “ We call it secularism. The state is no longer religious, so it is free in terms of expression and symbolism. »
It remains to be seen whether, in the event of victory, a similar performance will take place this winter on the stage of one of the most prestigious American musical ceremonies.
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