Gojira is the first metal band to perform at the Opening Ceremonies. Here’s who they are.
The identities of the performers at the Opening Ceremonies have been a closely guarded secret leading up to Friday’s spectacle along the Seine, but the French newspaper Le Parisien revealed a few of the acts booked by the ceremony’s musical director Victor Le Masne.
One of the loudest is Gojira, a popular French heavy metal band that has achieved global success while touring with the likes of Metallica and Slipknot. According to Forbes, Gojira will be the first metal band to perform at the Opening Ceremonies.
Formed by brothers Joe and Mario Duplantier in the southwestern French commune of Ondres in 1996 under the name Godzilla, the group changed its name to Gojira, the Japanese name for the fictional monster that debuted on the big screen 70 years ago, in 2001 due to copyright concerts. Gojira released its first album, “Terra Incognita,” the same year.
Gojira has since received three Grammy Award nominations. In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine named the band’s 2005 album “From Mars to Sirius” the 97th greatest metal album of all time. Two of the songs on the album featured “themes of marine-mammal preservation.”
“An immediate hit in their native France, the band soon became spokespeople for environmental causes and Joe became the country’s first bona fide guitar hero in decades,” Rolling Stone reported.
Le Parisien reported that Gojira, which holds the record for the loudest concert at Stade de France, would perform with Franco-Swiss opera singer Marina Viotti.
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