Organizers of this year's Olympiad, which kicks off Friday in Salt Lake City, hope that nightly performances by multi-platinum pop music superstars will give the Games new attitude - and lure more viewers to give ratings a big boost.
The schedule for a special concert series, in conjunction with each evening's athlete medal presentations, reads almost like Billboard's Top 10, featuring acts such as 'N sync, Nelly Furtado, Creed and the Dave Matthews Band.
The plaza, in downtown Salt Lake, will host a nightly ceremony for medal winners of the day's events.
Following the medal presentation, national headlining acts will take the stage for a concert.
NBC will broadcast one song from each night's concert during its prime-time coverage.
Seay said organizers decided to stage the nightly music events, officially called the Hallmark Olympic Celebration Concert series, as a way of lightening the atmosphere of the often serious medal presentation ceremony.
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"Music is so inspirational, so celebratory," said Seay. "We're hoping the athletes, the medal winners, will come and jam onstage with the bands every night, gold medals and everything."
"It's a big party. It's, you know, 'Yahoo!'" Seay added.
When booking acts to perform during the series, organizers claimed they tried to match specific sports with music that fit the demographic of both its athletes and audience.
"We tried to mix it up as much as possible," said Seay. "We really looked at the sport and asked what kind of music would snowboarders want to hear, for example."
Apparently, 'boarders want to hear Smash Mouth. The Southern California rock act, best known for such stadium-friendly anthems as "All Star," will perform on Feb. 15, the same night for the medal presentations for two snowboarding events.
Mainstream rock monster Creed, which had a chokehold on the No. 1 spot on Billboard's charts for much of the holiday season, will perform Feb. 19, when medals are presented for short-track speedskating and freestyle skiing events.
Country favorites Brooks & Dunn are on tap for Feb. 16, the night of medal ceremonies for alpine skiing, speedskating and biathlon events.
Seay admits that, in trying to land the biggest names to boost ratings, organizers sometimes were unable to match sports with the right act. Case in point: 'N Sync will serenade the winners of the men's slalom event on Feb. 23.
"A few nights didn't quite work out," said Seay.
Despite organizers' attempts to book a range of genres, the lineup leans heavily toward mainstream rock and country.
Notably absent are rap, hip-hop and metal acts, genres that regularly outsell country and give rock a run for its money.
Seay did not comment directly on the dominance of network TV-friendly genres for the concert series, but did say that booking acts was contingent on availability and how popular they would be with the hometown crowd, who will make up the bulk of the concert and medal ceremony audiences.
"A lot of tickets are being given out in Salt Lake, as a gift to local folks," Seay said of the promotional campaign.
Local tastes apparently also account for the decidedly American flavor of the acts performing.
Native New Yorker Marc Anthony will inject a little salsa into the series, but the most exotically born headliner is Toronto's Barenaked Ladies.
The Games' opening ceremonies have a slightly more international flavor, with Sting and cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing _ though opening night's headliners are all country girls, namely LeAnn Rimes and the Dixie Chicks.
Seay said the events of Sept. 11 had no impact on booking decisions for the opening ceremonies or concert series, or for the overall theme of this year's Olympiad, "Light the Fire Within."
Knight Ridder-Tribune
