Gojira have released the music video for Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!), their single performed at this year's Paris Olympic Games.
Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!), inspired by the French Revolution-era song Ah! Ça ira!, has also earned the French metallers their fourth Grammy nomination, as they land in the running for Best Metal Performance at the upcoming 67th Annual Grammy Awards.
Accompanied by composer Victor le Manse and French-Swiss mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti, Gojira performed the track from the windows of Paris’ Concierge this summer, surrounded by pyrotechnics and blood-red streamers, making them the first metal band ever to perform at the Olympic Games.
Before the ceremony, frontman Joe Duplantier told the New York Times that choosing a heavy metal band to play revolutionary anthem was a fitting choice.
“It was a very bloody era of French history, so it was very metal," he said, before explaining how he felt under pressure to represent “the whole metal community on the world stage. The song’s going to be in your face."
Speaking of the moment afterwards with Rolling Stone, he said: "It’s been in the works for months. Ever since we were contacted by the Olympic Committee and the composer, Victor le Masne, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen just because it sounded completely unreal.
"The amount of people that would see us live kind of eclipsed the moment. I wasn’t thinking about what it was going to be because it was just too mind-bending to think about. So the reality of the moment was absolutely mind-blowing from where we were, up there at the Concierge and the view we had of the scenery and all the Olympic teams, passing by on boats. It was pretty surreal.”
Watch the video below:
