Billie Eilish and the Red Hot Chili Peppers Bring the Olympics Back to L.A. with Beachside Concert
Billie Eilish and the Red Hot Chili Peppers helped create the perfect Los Angeles beachside vibe as the Olympic Flag was passed to Los Angeles in the Closing Ceremony.
Some iconic Los Angeles musicians were on hand to celebrate the passing of the Olympic flag to the City of Los Angeles as the Paris Games came to an end.
The 2024 Paris Olympics' closing ceremony ended Sunday with Tom Cruise repelling into the Stade de France to grab the Olympic flag from gold medalist Simone Biles. After a quick motorcycle ride through Paris, he took a plane to Los Angeles and, in true Hollywood fashion, handed the flag off to Olympic athletes. Skateboarder Jagger Eaton, mountain biker Kate Courtney, and track and field gold medalist Michael Johnson carried the flag to Venice Beach where Los Angeles icons The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Billie Eilish stood by to deliver a high-energy beachside performance.
What Did The Red Hot Chili Peppers Perform at the Closing Ceremony?
The Red Hot Chili Peppers were the first to take the stage, performing their hit “Can’t Stop.”
Lead singer Anthony Kiedis jumped around the outdoor stage, energizing the crowd, as he sang in front of a large LA28 sign.
The sandy beach, palm trees, and blue ocean served as the perfect backdrop to signal the transition from Paris, France to the sunny shores of Los Angeles, where the summer games will take place in 2028.
“Red Hot Chili Peppers, such a Los Angeles band,” Closing Ceremony co-host Jimmy Fallon remarked.
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What did Billie Eilish sing at the Closing Ceremony?
The mic was then passed to Academy Award winning singer Billie Eilish who performed her hit “Birds of a Feather” alongside her brother Finneas on another nearby stage, a lifeguard station painted in a pail blue.
Eilish wore a white polo shirt with a red and blue diagonal stripe from Ralph Polo's Olympic collection, which she paired with khaki shorts and a baseball cap as she swayed and danced along in front of the ocean.
The crowd was definitely feeling the performance, with some even using their hands to make a heart sign to the singer.
What is Billie Eilish and The Red Hot Chili Peppers connection to Los Angeles?
The host city has special meaning for Eilish, who was born in Los Angeles.
“L.A. kind of has everything. You don’t even realize it,” she said in a video on Instagram just days before Sunday’s closing ceremony.
“Every time I come back, I feel back to myself and back to who I am and my roots,” she added.
According to the “What Was I Made For” singer, Los Angeles will be the perfect backdrop to the Games because the city is already “inspiring” and “really diverse.”
“The Olympics is the Olympics. That’s everybody all over the world coming together,” she said. “I’m looking forward to that.”
The alt rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers has also never been shy about its love of California and Los Angeles, incorporating the state into the lyrics of many of their hits including “Californication,” “Under the Bridge” and “Dani California.”
Band member Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary even recalled his own LA memory in 2022 when the band got its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“When I was 11 years old, I panhandled on this street,” he said. “I know this street inside out. The street knows me. Whenever we traveled around the world, the street has always been a part of me.”
Before the closing ceremony began, executive producer and creator Ben Winston promised the handover to Los Angeles would “showcase the heartbeat of LA,” according to Olympics.com.
“We hope to showcase a collection of Los Angeles stories — featuring the city’s people, creativity, music and of course sport, all wrapped up with a little Hollywood magic — to invite the world into the LA28 Games,” he said.
