Alanis Morrisette, Avril Lavigne and Nickelback? The thought provoking “Whoa Vancouver” by Inward Eye? That’s the best we could muster for the whole world to see? While both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were wonderful through my gold coloured glasses, some of the talent booking decisions were beyond horrible. It’s not a matter of why would the producer hire these guys. More a matter of “Was everyone else booked and not willing to clear their schedules?” Bryan Adams singing something other than Summer of ’69 was a mistake and they just kept piling up from there. I’ve been saying since the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing that a Canadian ceremony has to be a giant rock concert. Why not? After all, we have loads of rock and roll talent right here in our backyard. I’m glad that someone followed my advice, it’s just too bad that they did it in the worst way possible.

So let’s fix VANOC’s mistakes and put together a real concert for the ages just to show the world that we aren’t as musically hopeless as we came off during the closing ceremony.

After beating the Americans for two hockey gold medals, it would only be appropriate for the Guess Who (or what’s left of it) to rock the house.

And after that, bring up BTO (or the remnants of it) for their legendary rock anthem.

More slightly hockey related stuff. The Tragically Hip’s hockey anthem.

I told you above that Bryan Adams is only good for Summer of ’69. I wasn’t kidding.

Tom Cochrane may be Canada’s greatest one hit wonder but that would just make him the gold medallist of Canadian one hit wonders. And he name drops Vancouver. Could this be any more perfect?

With all the suggestions that came into us, I was shocked that The Trews didn’t get nominated. Let’s throw some love out to the east coast.

We canvassed our Tweeps for some help booking a revised closing ceremony concert. The first suggestion we got was pop/alternative/reggae band Bedouin Soundclash.

Another suggestion from Twitter. An occasionally overlooked Canadian band but they were pretty good in that early-90s grunge era. I didn’t think Superman’s Dead would be appropriate so OLP’s original hit it is instead.

Canada’s musical talent isn’t limited entirely to rock or alternative acts. We also have a pretty damn good metal band called Three Days Grace.

The Arcade Fire are a generally divisive band. You love ’em or you hate ’em. I was one of the few at my old radio haunt that loved them. This one is probably their best song.

Gordon Lightfoot isn’t dead… At least, we think he’s not dead. With CanWest’s sources, you can never be too sure what’s happening. If he was actually still alive last night, he should have been there.

Neil Young was already at BC Place last night. Why not have him come out for a second song?

Actually, the North Korean delegation may not appreciate this one.

No podium can be completely owned without Rush.

The night just wouldn’t be complete without the greatest rock song in Canadian history.

The above experiment is half wishful thinking of what could have been and half a demonstration to the rest of the world that we do, in fact, have better musical acts than Nickelback. If only Nickelback had burned to the ground last night and Alanis followed that up with “Ironic,” then we would have topped Beijing. And the bands I put above are but a small sample of the great musical talent that we have in Canada. So to the people of the world: I’m really sorry about last night. Don’t give up on our musicians. Like the BTO song, you ain’t seen nothing yet.