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MUSIC

Benicássim 2013 music festival saved by buyout

The organizers of the major Spanish music festival Benicássim have scotched cancellation rumours with a statement on their official Facebook page confirming new owners have been found for the event.

Published: 3 July 2013 16:17 CEST
Benicássim 2013 music festival saved by buyout
Fans of acts including headliners Arctic Monkeys, who played at the festival in 2011, sought reassurance that the event would still take place. Photo: Flickr/fiberfib

Claims and counter-claims about goings-on at the Benicássim International Music Festival (FIB) have been circulating on the internet for several days.

Thousands of music lovers travel each year to the resort near the port city of Valencia for the event which was voted 'Best Overseas Festival' at the 2012 UK Festival Awards.

This year's Benicássim is set to take place between July 18th and the 21st, with a line-up featuring a host of big-name stars.

But cancellation rumours sent waves of panic around social media as visitors feared their trips could be in jeopardy.

Alleged problems with event planning and news that majority shareholder Vince Power was looking to sell out only fuelled the online gossip, leading organizers to issue a statement on the festival's official Facebook page on Wednesday.

“Denis Desmond and SJM Concerts have jointly acquired a major shareholding in Maraworld SA, parent company of Festival Internacional de Benicàssim (FIB),” the statement read.

“Vince Power remains a shareholder in Maraworld SA. He will continue in charge as Managing Director until August 2013.

“FIB is in no way affected by the acquisition and this year’s festival will go ahead as planned 18–21 July 2013.”

Vince Power commented: “The difficult economic climate coupled with the bad year suffered by Music Festivals PLC has prompted my decision to sell a major shareholding in Benicàssim festival.”

“I am pleased that two of Europe’s best known Festival Promoters are now taking part,” said Power in the statement.

“FIB is one of the world’s most established and best-loved live music events and I wanted to ensure the future of the festival for many years to come.”

This year’s festival headliners include The Killers, Queens of the Stone Age and Arctic Monkeys.

Other major acts taking part number Primal Scream, the Kaiser Chiefs and Dizzee Rascal.

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CULTURE

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

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
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.

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