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MUSIC

Spain launches probe after U2 concerts sell out in seconds

The Spanish government said Friday it had ordered police to investigate why tickets for two upcoming U2 concerts in Madrid sold out almost instantly, forcing fans to pay inflated prices on resale sites.

Published: 2 February 2018 18:52 CET
Spain launches probe after U2 concerts sell out in seconds
(L-R) The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr, Bono and Adam Clayton of U2 perform during The Joshua Tree Tour 2017, Photo: AFP

The Irish band announced a second concert date in Madrid after tickets for the first show scheduled for September 20th at the 16,000-seat WiZink Center went within minutes of going on sale on Tuesday.

Tickets for the second show scheduled for September 21st went on sale on Friday and also sold out very quickly.   

Culture Minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo said he had asked police to investigate after the tickets for the first concert sold out so quickly.    

“It is not normal that a few minutes after tickets go on sale over the internet, there are none left,” he told a news conference.    

The minister said this hurts fans who must then turn to other sellers offering tickets “at a much higher price” online.    

A government commission was set up last year after similar problems occurred with other concerts, to look into what changes need to be made to Spanish laws to improve the fight against ticket scalping, he added.

Tickets for the two U2 concerts in Madrid, which sold at €35 to €195 ($43.5  to $242 ), are being offered for resale on classified ad websites in Spain for as much as €500.

Some adverts claim to be selling two pens for several hundred euros which include two “free” tickets for one of the U2 concerts in Madrid.   

The authorities suspect scalpers use software bots to snap up concert tickets, which they then resell at inflated prices.

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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