Gojira have enjoyed a substantial boost in their streaming numbers since their performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
The French metal band provided one of the talking points of the ceremony, which took place on July 26. They performed French Revolution-era song ‘Ah, Ça Ira!’ alongside experimental opera singer Marina Viotti on the side of La Conciergerie, a castle turned prison where Marie Antoinette spent her final days. Their performance made them the first metal band to ever perform at an Olympics opening ceremony.
Gojira had already garnered a large amount of Spotify monthly listeners before the ceremony – 1.7million, to be precise (as per Loudwire). The outlet noted that their monthly listeners shot up to just under 2.7million a week after their performance, a growth of almost 50 per cent.
While the vast majority of viewers seemed to love the performance and took to social media to express their enjoyment of the set, some labelled it as being “satanic”.
“It’s none of that,” Duplantier told Rolling Stone, “it’s French history. It’s French charm, you know, beheaded people, red wine and blood all over the place — it’s romantic, it’s normal. There’s nothing satanic.”
He went on to recall how the country takes pride in severing religion’s ties to the government.
“France is a country that made a separation between the state and religion during the revolution. And it’s something very important, very dear to the foundation of republican France. We call it laïcité. It’s when the state is not religious anymore, so therefore it’s free in terms of expression and symbolism.”
“It’s all about history and facts,” he added. “We don’t, we don’t look too closely at symbolism in terms of religion.”
Duplantier also said that they felt they were under pressure to represent “the whole metal community” during their performance.
Duplantier said he wanted the performance to be a source of pride for “the whole metal community on the world stage”, adding that the song in question was particularly appropriate, given its connection to a period of revolution.
“It was a very bloody era of French history,” he said. “So it was very metal.”
The ceremony, which proved to be divisive, also included performances from Lady Gaga, who sang the cabaret classic ‘Mon Truc En Plumes’, and Celine Dion, who brought the show to a close with a cover of Edith Piaf’s ‘L’Hymne A L’Amour’.