There have been many highlights from the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and not all of them had a lot to do with the actual competition itself. First there was that Trump and Kim Jong-un hoax. Then a squirrel going rogue. There was even an Alex Turner lookalike.
But things were really stepped up for the Olympics closing ceremony yesterday. During the big show, a 13-year-old guitarist Yang Tae-hwan completely stole the spotlight for his guitar shredding rendition of excerpts from Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’, backed by neon-lit dancers recreating the musical frequencies like some sort of real-life Guitar Hero.
For a bit of a back story, Yang has been performing in front of large crowds since he was nine and has his own YouTube channel where his videos get thousands of hits. He uploads covers of everyone from Michael Jackson to The Knack.
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However, it’s definitely the biggest stage Yang has performed on to date and, needless to say, people were rather impressed:
My new aesthetic is 100% going to be this guitar player at the closing ceremony pic.twitter.com/8DUXIIbToB
— Andrew Jones (@andrewmjones) February 25, 2018
The kid SHREDDING the guitar at the closing ceremony is my new hero
— Alex (@anestofpigs) February 25, 2018
Wow that kid playing the electric guitar on the #ClosingCeremony is incredible…he is only 13 years old & is playing to an audience of hundreds of millions!! ?? #PyeongChang2018
— Barnsey (@officialbarnsey) February 25, 2018
Looking like a mix of Albert Hammond Jr and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, with a Drake-a-la-‘Hotline Bling’ rollneck sweater thrown in for good measure, Yang was effortlessly cool.
Others, however, thought he seemed familiar in a very different way:
Dubbed the ‘Guitar Kid’, Yang has already had fan art made in his honour following the show-stopping performance:
Let’s just reflect on all this for a second: he’s only 13! Most of us at that age are doing something futile and borderline anti-social in a suburban park, not performing at the Olympics.
What’s next for Yang Tae-hwan? We can only wait and see.