Sports !

[Thesouphead]

Messi is coming to the US for MLS!   You heard it here first!

[ThePumisher]

Doing the Beckham?

[Bosco]

Cool handoff for Paris 2024. You guys got me pumped! If they pull off the beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower that will be pretty dang neat.

Any rumors who's gonna produce some of the ceremony stuff? Michel Gondry? Anthony Gonzalez (m83)? Jean Michel Jarre, the inevitable return of Daft Punk?

[Enjoyed]

My team, Cloud9, just upset the 1st seed in the summer playoffs to guarantee a spot at the World Championships - which are being held in North America this year.

So. Freakin'. Hyped.

[Ben_j]

Messi is coming to the US for MLS!   You heard it here first!

This did not age well

[Ben_j]

So, did anyone watch rugby today?

[Wolkenkrabber]

So, did anyone watch rugby today?

Yup

[Ben_j]

Yup

No no. Last week 😁

[Bosco]

Victor Wembanyama, welcome to the NBA

Also, Nikola Jokic impressively conquering the NBA playoffs this year and bringing the Denver Nuggets their first title. Arguably, the best player in the NBA right now.

Basketball becoming quite the global game. You guys feeling the hype like we do over here?

[Ben_j]

Rugby World Cup starting today with the best game we could have dreamed of, France - All Blacks! I hope we win this WC at home, I think we have the team for that.

Here I can feel the excitement building up. All bars are prepping up, lots of fans everywhere, many shops with decorations related to the french team (a pharmacy, even).. 

[Wolkenkrabber]

Rugby World Cup starting today with the best game we could have dreamed of, France - All Blacks! I hope we win this WC at home, I think we have the team for that.

Here I can feel the excitement building up. All bars are prepping up, lots of fans everywhere, many shops with decorations related to the french team (a pharmacy, even)..

Anyone following the Rugby World Cup besides BenJ and I?
If not, you're missing out on some very slick rugby. Much less stop-start than say, American Football.
Anyway, hard luck to hosts France, knocked out by the narrowest of margins tonight against South Africa. Now you know how it (kinda) felt to be Ireland last night.
At the final whistle you sit there thinking: how did we lose that??

I noticed that they use a bit of Freddie Mercury's Live Aid performance over the PA (and I believe they did at the last World Cup too, although I don't remember it).

[Enjoyed]

GG Spain. Better team won on the day, no question.

We tried. It was a good showing, I thought, having not watched footie for MANY years.
It was a fun ride!

[Wolkenkrabber]

Olympics! The opening ceremony! It was...different.

Loved this bit in the tweet. We've discussed Cerrone's Supernature here before in relation to the film Climax. The track was re-edied or remixed for the film. But this version sounds slightly different to that, with the big choral voices. And we got a LOT of it. An Olympics 2024 re-work?

https://x.com/slyfathom/status/1816944245292278156

Other tunes heard during the ceremony:

During the teams-on-the-boats bit:
Justice - DANCE
Braxe & Falke - Intro
Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You
Sheila B Devotion - Spacer
M83 - Midnight City

During the Eurozone Dance bit:
(some of these were a bit cheesy!)
Gala - Free From Desire
Da Hool - Meet Her At The Love Parade
Black Box - Ride On Time
La Bouche - Be My Lover
Nicky Doll - I Had A Dream
Edward Maya - Stereo Love
Gigi D'agostino - Blah Blah Blah
Darude - Sandstorm
Ice MC -It's A Rainy Day

It certainly was a rainy day!
I saw someone say that at the 2008 Beijing Olympics some cloud seeding was carried out to control the rain.  That might have helped toight. I kept expecting the fashion show catwalk to have a disaster...

[ThePumisher]

Olympics! The opening ceremony! It was...different.

Haven't seen it all because of work, so i switched on real late into the show (i think the first part i saw was someone in a weird dress dancing with the olympic fire on a bridge, folowed by the Imagine-part with the burning piano and afterwards the metal horse). And my first thought was nearly the same as yours, "ok, that looks different". Couldn't decide if i like it or not. Thing for me is that the London olympics show by Danny Boyle has set the bar nearly unreachable high, so i always compare shows with this opening ceremony.

According to this video i started watching around 2h 23min into the show (United States ship) =>

in relation to the film Climax

Ha! When i saw one of the dance scenes during the ceremony my first thought was "hmm, maybe directed by Gaspar Noë?"

It certainly was a rainy day!
I saw someone say that at the 2008 Beijing Olympics some cloud seeding was carried out to control the rain.  That might have helped toight.

Mankind shouldn't try to control nature, we're already interfering too much with it since start of the industrialization - results can be seen all over the planet.

[rynostar]

Other tunes heard during the ceremony:

During the teams-on-the-boats bit:

Also heard Cassius - I <3 U So and a track early on that Dimitri From Paris has spinned / edited (Need to find name).

Interesting approach. The boat sequence was a call back to a European allure akin to Miyazaki films (Poco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service) in my mind.

My gripe is a continued frustration with the Canadian CBC feed having unprofessional announcers. They were continually behind announcing artists to the point they entirely missed names. They didn't acknowledge Gojira. Back in 2012, They never acknowledged that Underworld. The announcers spent large chunks of time discussing which countries they have been to personally in the past rather than recognizing sporting accomplishments of the athletes. I would be very interested to rewatch the feed via BBC, NBC, ARD, or France Televisions to measure the professionalism of other presenters.

Also, I used to loathe that Celine Dion was Canadian. Now I am buying into the hype that she is The Showstopper. Even if the lip synching was atrocious.

Edit: From a Reddit page

Song List (Though not complete as there are a number of songs missing including the Celine Dion track)
La Foule - Edith Piaf
Chacun Fait (C'qui Lui Plaît) - Chagrin d'Amour
Marcia Baïla - Les Rita Mistuko
Jacques Offenbach - Can Can
Do You Hear the People Sing - Les Miserables
Ça Ira - Gojira
L'Amour est Un Oiseau Rebelle - Georges Bizet (from Carmen)
Djadja - Aya Nakamura
Danse Macabre - Camille Saint-Saens
La Vie en Rose - Edith Piaf
Born to Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez
Mon Truc En Plume - Lady Gaga
Cassius - I luv You So
King - Rim'K
Ça Balance Pas Mal à Paris - France Gall and Michel Berger
Andy - les Rita Mitsuko
Lady - Modjo
Chic ft. Shiela - Spacer
Daniel Balavoine - L'Aziza
Besoin d'Amoir - France Gall
Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You
Jupiter vs. Kassav - Kass Limon
Claude François - Alexandrie Alexandra
Justice - D.A.N.C.E
Dj Mehdi - Signatune (Thomas Bangalore Remix)
Freed from Desire - Gala
Lettre à France - Michel Polnareff
Be My Lover - La Bouche
Midnight City - M83
Europe - The Final Countdown
Paroles, Paroles - Dalida (Remixed)
Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina - Stereo Love
Darude - Sandstorm
Désenchantée - Mylène Farmer
Louxor J'adore - Philippe Katerine
Imagine - John Lennon (sung by Juliette Armanet, Sofiane Pamart on the piano)