Dame Edna look alikes covered the stage and above. Picture / John Borren
It was an Everage end to a Commonwealth Games that was anything but average.
When the globally infamous Dame Edna (aka actor Barry Humphries) from the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds ordered "fireworks" from her giant video-screened visage, that's what Melbourne got - the biggest pyrotechnics blast the city has
seen thundered the end of the 18th Games.
One thousand Dame Ednas invaded the Melbourne Cricket Ground with glowing gladioli, soaring into the air to form a human pyramid and launching a tram conductress Dame in flying tribute to the winged tram that floated into the "G" to open the 12-day sportsfest.
The 12 days had been truly memorable, Games Federation president Mike Fennell told the packed stadium.
The athletes who poured into the stadium to party to Australian rock legend John Farnham had set 74 Games records and four world records.
New Zealand's flagbearer, silver medal-winning shooter Greg Yelavich, 11-times Games medal-winner and an Olympic medallist, represented his own team's brave effort when he marched through the stands with the national flag, only hours after the Silver Ferns' spectacular closing gold against Australia.
Creative director Andrew Walsh had promised an unashamed celebration of Melbourne and Australian music, and he delivered - albeit with a touch of Kiwi via Neil Finn's Don't Dream It's Over sung by Aussie Sarah Blasko.
Melbourne guitarist Joe Hansen blasted a fanfare from the roof of the Great Southern Stand before joining his band Grinspoon in the arena below, where scores of AFL players burst in to perform a choreographed play with ballerinas in tutus bearing the colours of the code's 16 clubs.
Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly belted out Leaps And Bounds as the arena changed to Melburnian icons and swung again to children dressed as Formula One race cars and dozens of lollipop girls carrying giant sweetheart lollies.
And then there was Bollywood and India's celebrities, with the message for the 2010 Games: "Namaste. See You in Delhi. Swagatam."
For Melbourne, the party was over.
