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IN PHOTOS: Copenhell rocks Danish capital

For the sixth year running, the Copenhagen harbour-area Refshaleøen played host to the three-day metal tour-de-force known as Copenhell. Check out the photo highlights here.

Published: 23 June 2015 08:57 CEST
IN PHOTOS: Copenhell rocks Danish capital
Copenhell fans were treated to three days of music, fire and destruction. Photo: Philip B. Hansen
Despite what can only be described as Denmark's typically schizophrenic summer weather, this year's Copenhell heavy metal music festival turned out to be a monumental success with several memorable highlights. 
 
With heavyweight headliners Slipknot, Primus, The Darkness and Gojira, Copenhell provided a diverse lineup to satisfy the many shades of metal music preferences in its 2015 incarnation.
 
 
With a roster of 42 bands on five stages, the festival offered an abundance of musical experiences, but the grounds were also stocked with plenty alternative forms of entertainment. Copenhell is a carnivalesque venture into the playful, unadulterated metal experiences, complete with the decor of darkness and ambience of the underworld.
 
We teamed up with our friends at Rockfreaks.net and the terrifically talented photographers Phillip B. Hansen and Lykke Nielsen to bring you the best photos of the festival's three days, highlighting selected concerts and Copenhell's famous atmosphere. See them here. 
 
 
The ghoulish fiends of Ghost were just one of the more than 40 bands at Copenhell. Photo: Lykke Nielsen
The ghoulish fiends of Ghost were just one of the more than 40 bands at Copenhell. Photo: Lykke Nielsen
 

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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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