What You Didn’t See During the Olympics Closing Ceremony On NBC TV [Updated]

It’s been a fantastic seventeen days of games and opening and closing ceremonies at the London 2012 Summer Olympics, and now they have come to an end (sob!). I really hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.

While I am ever so grateful to have cable so that I could watch the games and Closing Ceremony live, and to NBC for providing the live stream, I am also very disappointed in the network for editing out (again) several segments of this one-time event. And given all of the tweets and posts with #nbcfail in them, I’m not the only one. It would have been a spectacular move on NBC’s part to broadcast the whole program and put that hashtag to rest, at least for a while. The hour or so that NBC spent showing Olympics highlights could have been used to broadcast the Closing Ceremony in its entirety, even with the commercials.

Whether the bits that were edited out were great or less so is a matter of opinion, but you had to have seen them to have one, so I’ve gathered up what I could to give you at least a sense of what you missed if you didn’t watch the live stream. And if you didn’t stay with the NBC broadcast past the preview of its new sitcom and the local news, then you missed one of the highlights of the entire Closing Ceremony.

Early on in the program, Ray Davies sang “Waterloo Sunset,” one of the all-time great songs by the Kinks. No video of his performance at the Closing Ceremony is available, so here’s one of him singing it at the Glastonbury Festival in 2010.

In my last post, I wrote that Kate Bush had been spotted at the rehearsal venue. Well, maybe she was there, but she didn’t perform at the show. She did, though, record an updated version of her song, “Running Up That Hill,” which served as the music for one segment. Legally, I can’t post the video of it here; however, you can view it on the Gawker website. (Note: There is some language on the page that may not appeal to or be appropriate for everyone.) If you’d like to hear the original version of the song, I can post the video for that.

Muse’s performance of “Survival,” the official song of the London 2012 Olympics, was also edited out, and while a video of it is available, it was shot by someone in the audience sitting far away. You can check it out on YouTube if you like. Here’s the official music video from the IOC (International Olympic Committee).

And last but definitely not least, we have The Who, who performed a medley of “Baba O’Riley,” “See Me, Feel Me” from the rock opera Tommy, and “My Generation.” Here’s the video of their performance at the Closing Ceremony.

Video uploaders have been complying with take-down notices (smart), so the video that was here is now gone from YouTube. Sorry, folks. I did find another video from someone in the audience, but don’t know if that will eventually be taken down as well, so I’m leaving it be. NBC has made its video of The Who’s performance available in the Live Extra section of its Olympics website, but if you couldn’t access the live stream, you won’t be able to access this either. I know the video below is little consolation, but it’s an oldie but goody and something that might ease the pain if you missed their show last night. Plus, Keith Moon and John Entwistle are in it.

Thanks for indulging me in this last bit of Olympics coverage, especially as this post was more oriented to British music than to British TV. The next post will cover something about a British program that’s a favorite on both sides of the pond, so make sure you check it out.

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