Phoenix teamed up with Air, Vampire Weekend‘s Ezra Koenig and French electro-pop pioneer Kavinsky at the closing ceremony of Paris Olympics 2024.

The French band, who were heavily rumoured to be making an appearance earlier this week, performed a medley of songs at the Stade de France, surrounded by Olympic medallists who had competed at the event since the opening ceremony on July 26.

Kicking off with ‘Lisztomania’, the band then teamed up with Kavinsky and Belgian singer Angèle for the former’s hit ‘Nightcall’, which featured in the the movie Drive starring Ryan Gosling. CSS singer Lovefoxxx sang on the original version. You can watch the full performance on BBC iPlayer here.

They were then joined by Cambodian rapper VannDa for ‘If I Ever Feel Better’ which segued into a snippet of ‘Funky Squaredance, Pt. 1/2/3’.

Air then appeared for a performance ‘Playground Love’ with Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars taking up the vocal duties, which were sung under his Gordon Tracks moniker on the original version of the 2000 track. It featured on the soundtrack of The Virgin Suicides movie, released that same year.

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Ezra Koening teamed up on vocals on 2022 single ‘Tonight’, from the band’s album that year Alpha Zulu.

The band wrapped up their performance with ‘1901’ which saw Mars jump into the crowd of competitors before he was hoisted in the air.

Phonenix played:

‘Lisztomania’
‘Nightcall’
‘If I Ever Feel Better’ / ‘Funky Squaredance Pt. 1/2/3’
‘Playground Love’
‘Tonight’
‘1901’

The events kicked off with an epic opening ceremony along the river Seine on July 26, featuring Lady Gaga performing French cabaret song ‘Mon truc en plumes’ and Gojira performing French Revolution song ‘Ah Ça Ira!’ with opera singer Marina Viotti.

Celine Dion also performed for the first time in four years, taking on Edith Piaf’s ‘L’Hymne A L’Amour’ in her first show since she revealed in 2022 that she had been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome (SPS).



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