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Miley Cyrus waves wrong flag at Spanish concert

The American singer demonstrated a better grasp of 'twerking' than of Spanish regional geography when she waved the flag of the autonomous Basque Country during her recent concert in Barcelona, capital of the independence-seeking Catalonia.

Published: 16 June 2014 12:27 CEST

Miley Cyrus waves wrong flag at Spanish concert

Cyrus herself seemed blissfully unaware of the error. Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images/AFP

Seventeen thousand fans flocked to Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi arena on Friday to see the former child actor turned pop sensation but were left perplexed when she arrived on stage waving the flag of a different would-be independent nation.

The singer was seemingly unaware that the ikurriña is the flag of the Basque Country and not Catalonia where the concert was taking place.

Many Catalans want to hold a referendum on independence from Spain and the estelada flag of the separatist movement has become a common sight on Barcelona's streets. The ikurriña is, however, understandably very rarely seen.

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Miley was apparently untroubled by the mix-up and went on to delight her mainly teen and pre-teen followers by performing hits from her latest album, ‘Bangerz’.

Cyrus, 21, is the daughter of ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ singer Billy Ray Cyrus and rose to fame in her own right as the clean-cut star of Disney’s ‘Hannah Montana’ show. But the star recently hit headlines worldwide for raunchy 'twerking' dance performances at the MTV awards and highly sexualized music videos.

While in Barcelona she posted a topless photograph of herself on Instagram and attracted criticism from some media pundits for taking her 14-year-old sister Tish to a nightclub.

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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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