Watch Gojira in fiery performance at Olympics opening ceremony in Paris

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By ( Metal Hammer ) published

Gojira blast out metal version of French revolutionary song Ah! Ça Ira at Olympic Games opening ceremony

Gojira perform during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, July 26, 2024.
(Image credit: Photo by Zhang Yuwei / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ZHANG YUWEI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Gojira brought heavy metal to a massive new audience with an explosive live performance at the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Paris, France.

The French metal heroes performed a fierce version of French revolutionary song Ah! Ça Ira. Watch footage of the performance below.

The band played alongside opera singer Marina Viotti on the walls of The Conciergerie – a former royal palace and prison which is now a French national monument and museum.

Gojira's performance was part of a segment called Liberté. It is the first time the Olympics opening ceremony has been held outside the Olympic stadium, with athletes travelling down the River Seine in a convoy of boats.

Before the ceremony, Gojira frontman Joe Duplantier told the New York Times that asking a heavy metal band to play a revolutionary anthem made perfect sense.

He said: “It was a very bloody era of French history, so it was very metal." He added that the band felt pressure to represent “the whole metal community on the world stage. The song’s going to be in your face."

The ceremony featured a mix of international stars and French artists across a wide range of genres, including performances by Lady Gaga and Céline Dion.

Gojira's most recent album Fortitude was released in 2021. In a glowing 9/10 review for Metal Hammer, Alec Chillingworth wrote of the record: "Fortitude is everything you wanted from Gojira and more: a breathtaking showcase of heaviness and dedication to the craft, teasing out tones, passages and emotional resonance other bands just can’t access. It’s metal for the masses, and Gojira’s crowning achievement."

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Stef Lach

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.