Geneva's lakeside streets morphed into a gigantic dance floor over the weekend as an estimated 300,000 music lovers and partygoers gathered for the annual open-air Lake Parade bash.

"/> Geneva's lakeside streets morphed into a gigantic dance floor over the weekend as an estimated 300,000 music lovers and partygoers gathered for the annual open-air Lake Parade bash.

" />

Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

MUSIC

Thousands descend on Geneva for Lake Parade street party

Geneva's lakeside streets morphed into a gigantic dance floor over the weekend as an estimated 300,000 music lovers and partygoers gathered for the annual open-air Lake Parade bash.

Published: 11 July 2011 11:41 CEST

Thousands descend on Geneva for Lake Parade street party

Geoff Pegler

This year’s Lake Parade featured more than 150 international DJs and live acts performing on stages set up along the Lake Geneva quayside, making it one of the biggest street techno parties in Switzerland.

The festival-style event was further enlivened by colourful “Lake Mobiles” – themed trucks pumping out house, trance, electro, disco and Latino music while criss-crossing the area.

The event’s one-day programme also included a bid to form the “world’s longest human chain in swimsuits”, a Guinness World Record attempt organized with the aim of raising funds for the Red Cross.

Images captured from a helicopter circling overhead will be used to ascertain whether or not the record attempt was successful.

Launched in the late 90s, the Lake Parade Geneva attracts thousands of revellers every year.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

Url copied to clipboard!