Gojira Premiere Official Music Video For Their Paris Summer Olympics Performance Of “Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)”

Gojira Premiere Official Music Video For Their Paris Summer Olympics Performance Of “Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)”

There’s a good chance you witnessed Gojira’s historic performance at the Paris Olympic Games’ opening ceremony this summer—or at least tried to. Many fans only managed to catch it via low-quality clips online or broadcasts interrupted by commentary and edits.

As the first metal band to perform at the Olympics, Gojira made waves with their performance of “Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)”. However, access to a high-quality version of the performance has been limited due to a tangle of broadcast rights and copyright claims—until now. The band has officially released a pristine upload of the performance, finally allowing fans to experience it as intended.

The event was nothing short of breathtaking, with Gojira playing while suspended from ledges on the side of the historic Conciergerie Palace in Paris, France. The track was a collaborative effort with Victor Le Masne, the games’ musical director, and featured mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti, who also participated in the visually striking performance.

Despite its acclaim, the performance wasn’t without controversy. Gojira’s progressive metal sound and the macabre imagery of France’s revolutionary history, including a depiction of a beheaded Marie Antoinette, sparked mixed reactions globally. Some critics labeled it ‘Satanic’ or inappropriate, while others celebrated it as a groundbreaking cultural moment.

The song itself has earned accolades, later released as a single and securing a nomination for ‘Best Metal Performance’ at the GRAMMY Awards. Fans will have to wait until February to see if Gojira will add a GRAMMY win to their list of achievements.

Reflecting on the project, Gojira vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier spoke to Rolling Stone this past summer about how the song came to life, stating:

“We very simply and organically came up with riffs and grooves that we like to play. We took it as an opportunity to represent the metal scene. So it was our task to really go for it and lay it down, not just be there and play a few notes to shock people. We decided to go full-on with double-kick drums, screaming, growling, epic moments, and a tempo breakdown at the end; we really wanted to show what metal is all about. And to our surprise, it was all accepted by the committee.

But they gave us some guidelines and things that were mandatory, for example, saying ‘Ah! Ça Ira’ which I ended up saying three times in the song. It’s rare for me to sing in French in Gojira. So it was a bit of a challenge. I was the one pushing to put some English in the middle of the song to make it more international.”