Gigs & Festivals

George Michael, Muse to play Olympics closing ceremony, Kate Bush a ‘maybe’

By | Published on Thursday 9 August 2012

London 2012

If we’re to believe the maelstrom of largely untrue rumours regarding who is and who isn’t playing at this year’s Olympics closing ceremony on 12 Aug, we can now blithely assume that George Michael and Muse are – that’s ‘are’ – going to be part of the concert’s on-stage line-up.

In fact, you can take confirmation of George’s billing from… well, George, who yesterday tweeted that he was: “Spending most of the next week rehearsing like crazy for the Olympic closing ceremony”, also adding: “Obviously a bit nervous not having played for nearly a year, but rehearsals sounding great so far!”

As for Muse, the band’s drummer Dom Howard verified that they have been asked to perform the 2012 Games’ official single, ‘Survival’. Speaking to NME, he said: “It’s not something we did for the Olympics. They sowed a seed by asking us to do some music but then five months went by. We showed them a few songs when they asked us about [playing the] closing ceremony and they loved it. It represented the enormous competition of what the Olympics is”.

And here that song is now, in all its pomp and sports-themed splendour.

So, George Michael and Muse are (almost definitely) in. But what of infamous recluse Kate Bush, surely an obvious candidate for the patriotic pop spectacular. Well, two days ago Slicing Up Eyeballs noted the appearance on Amazon of this Olympic-looking 2012 remix of the Bush’s 1985 classic ‘Running Up That Hill’, a listing that has since been taken off the site.

Exciting as all this is, it’s more likely (especially since Bush hasn’t played live in ten years) that the remix will just feature on ‘A Symphony Of British Music’, the commemorative compilation LP that’s being released on the night of the ceremony.



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