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'NSYNC to sing US anthem at closing ceremony
'NSYNC will sing the American national anthem during Sunday's closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics that will also feature the biggest fireworks display seen in the United States. After a dignified opening ceremony and 17 days of heavy security following the September 11 attacks, organizers will invite 2,500 athletes to let it rip on Sunday to the music of Kiss, Bon Jovi, Moby and Christina Aguilera. "The tone of the closing ceremony will be completely different, it will be more of a celebration to entertain the athletes," producer Don Mischer told journalists on Saturday. Nothing demonstrates this better than the singing of the "Star-Spangled Banner". At the opening ceremony the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's rendition stilled the stadium as the "Ground Zero" flag recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center was presented to the 52,000 spectators. Boy band 'NSYNC come from the other end of the musical spectrum and still further out are 1970s heavy metal group Kiss who will perform their anthem "Rock and Roll All Nite". Incongruously, dancing to Kiss on the rink which fills much of the floor of Rice-Eccles Stadium will be double Olympic champion Katerina Witt, the epitome of figure skating grace. Dorothy Hamill, the 1976 Olympic champion, will dance to "Somewhere over the Rainbow", the theme tune of another Dorothy, before the athletes are invited on to the ice, which will be sanded, to dance to Bon Jovi and Aguilera. Organizers deliberately held back on fireworks during the opening ceremony but they are rubbing their hands in glee over a 4 1/2-minute thunderclap that will bring the curtain down on the ceremony and the Games. Ten thousand shells will be launched including eight 24-inch howitzers -- the Big Berthas of the fireworks world -- in a display that will spread out from the stadium into the Salt Lake Valley. The musical soundtrack accompanying the display contains a computer code which will be fed by radio signal to locations in the mountains and the city, coordinating it all.
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