It’s hard to believe in this era of climate catastrophes, AI running amok and people becoming millionaires by merely saying “hawk tuah”, but sometimes good things happen without a catch. Last Friday (July 26) was one such instance.
During the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Paris, native extreme metal mavens Gojira played a ferocious take on revolutionary song Ah! Ça Ira. The performance was endowed with vocals from opera singer Marina Viotti, blasts of pyro and blood-red streamers, and dozens of beheaded aristocrats. It dazzled the millions of people watching around the world and rightfully so. It was fucking awesome!
The three-minute playthrough was an acknowledgement of France’s insurrectionary history. Gojira were introduced by an actor/vocalist dressed as Marie Antoinette, whose head was famously liberated from her neck in 1793 following the French Revolution. Ah! Ça Ira was penned during said revolution, and the metal band pelting it out did so on the walls of palace and former prison La Conciergerie, where Antoinette was sentenced to death.
For the International Olympic Committee (IOC), anointing Gojira as the artist to perform this iconoclastic tune was their most inspired choice this year – well beyond getting the distinctly not-French likes of Lady Gaga to show up. For starters, as a showcase of national culture on the global stage, it just made sense. Gojira are one of the best-selling acts internationally in all of France, regardless of genre.
Beyond that, though, Gojira are one of very few major bands nowadays from whom calls for revolution don’t seem hollow. The four-piece announced themselves as warriors for the environment on third album From Mars To Sirius (2005): a concept piece about humanity moving from a depleted world onto the next one. Since then, they’ve matched words with action, supporting Brazil’s indigenous people with 2021 fundraising initiative Operation Amazonia and making merchandise from sustainable materials. There’s a legitimate strive for change, inspired by siblings Joe (vocals/guitars) and Mario Duplantier (drums) seeing pollution on their local beach as children, where so many other ‘counter-cultural’ musicians stop at their lyrics.
You could also argue that, musically, Gojira are the standard that so many metal bands should aim to follow. The band formed in rural France as fans of Metallica, Morbid Angel and Machine Head, and it’s the combination of those megastars’ best traits that made them quickly stand out. On early albums Terra Incognita (2001) and The Link (2003), there was a fusion of impressive intricacy with destructive knucklehead groove. Then, with From Mars…, there began more and more emphasis on melody alongside everything else. Such songs as Global Warming introduced vulnerable singing and expressions of anxiety, and the band’s growing infatuation with catchiness, while remaining cathartically heavy, saw 2021’s Fortitude thrust them to arena stardom across Europe.
Throughout that ascent, Gojira were a touring machine and hard-working perfectionists on the road. Code Orange frontman Jami Morgan once revealed they watch back every set they play and pick them apart. The Olympic performance is currently Gojira’s crown jewel following 20 years of growth: a testament to what extreme bands can achieve when they grind hard and write innovative but relatable songs.
The response to Gojira’s Olympics show was largely – and rightfully – a blend of awe and admiration. The Independent reports that some viewers have deemed the band “the only good thing” about the 2024 opening ceremony. On the other hand, Christian fundamentalists were apparently in an uproar over unfounded accusations of satanism. One influencer too toxic to deserve their name being mentioned here went so far as to say the performance was symptomatic of the West’s growing worship of the Devil.
And you know what? Good.
During all of metal’s halcyon periods, it has thrived on controversy. As the legendary Iron Maiden rose in the early 1980s, protests were staged across the States over the satanic imagery they used on The Number Of The Beast. Then, throughout nu metal’s takeover of the mainstream at the turn of the millennium, you couldn’t escape Fred Durst in the press, courting anger with feuds, braggadocious statements and his alleged sexual encounters.
History is again repeating itself in 2024. It’s not just Gojira who’ve caught the ire of Christian trolls who need to see red to feel alive: metal-adjacent nu gen name Bambie Thug was accused of similar Lucifer-loving during their ritualistic slot at the Eurovision Song Contest. Evangelical controversy also surrounded Bring Me The Horizon in the spring, when they released a tour poster reading “If Jesus Christ returns, well just kill that fucker”. If mainstream backlash is indicative of a metal heyday, then Gojira being crucified for “satanic” behaviour affirms that heavy riffing has entered a new golden age.
Ultimately, even if you hate Gojira’s music with a passion as bloody and fiery as their recent performance, the band have now statistically been seen more times at once than any other in metal. 29 million people tuned in and saw them incite a riverside inferno on Friday. Not even Metallica have entered that many living rooms simultaneously.
Metal has been brought to a new apex, and it’s been hoisted there by four men who practise what they preach, evolve with each release and work their derrières off. Has any other singular moment ever done this much good for this form of music?
