Crooner Cantona? Oh non!
Sardine riddler Eric a fish out of water on stage
IN Glasgow for the opening night of his UK tour to promote his album Cantona Sings Eric, French footie ace Eric Cantona takes to the stage arms stretched out wide, like the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil.
Fast forward to the end of what is a mystifying, surreal, yet oddly hypnotic, fish-out-of-water night, and ‘King Eric’ takes his leave to the sort of rapturous applause that used to greet his every twist and turn as the idol of the Stretford End during Fergie’s reign at Manchester United. Albeit minus the chants of ‘Ooh aah, Cantona!’
And in between? Well for 90 minutes the ex-striker turned torch singer delivers a concert that is more Theatre of the Absurd than Theatre of Dreams.
And every bit as bonkers as you might expect from the enigmatic Frenchman.
The litany of footballers turning their hand to pop music is not exactly one crowned in glory: Hoddle and Waddle teaming up for Diamond Lights; Gazza’s top ten smash Fog on the Tyne; a poodle-permed Kevin Keegan serenading the ladies on Top of the Pops with Head Over Heels In Love.
Although, to be fair, Grammy Award winner Julio Iglesias used to keep goal for Real Madrid reserves, and he didn’t do too bad. The sun-kissed Spanish smoothie’s career saw him go on to become one of the biggest-selling Latin music artists of all time.
It’s a level of success you suspect football’s Renaissance man Cantona is unlikely to match.
From Piaf to pop, the history of French chanson is a tortured one full of sensual soul searching, and existential angst.
And while Cantona, backed by the fine sparse accompaniment of a cellist and keyboards, brings a winning dose of Gallic charm, charisma and can-do punk aesthetic to proceedings, his songs are for the most part, well... just tortuous.
One dirge after another merges together in a bilingual swamp of faux naïf, gravelly voiced gravitas – including a newly penned anti-war song about geopolitics on the West Bank.
Only the intermittent touch of insouciant Roger Whittaker-like whistling, or ironic humour in a tune referencing the Manchester United star’s bizarre press conference quote about seagulls, trawlers and sardines after his prison sentence for kung-fu kicking FEET TALKING: a fan was overturned, lightens the load.
On stage, there’s no denying Cantona carries himself with the same swagger, elan and ‘je ne sais quoi’ that he used to bring to the field of play. And there’s a novelty value to the night that holds the attention. Even if the spoken word delivery shows he can’t really carry a tune. But try as he might to channel his inner Serge Gainsbourg, offsetting a sober black suit and white shirt, with a two-sizes-toosmall trilby and red boots, seen live, songs that actually work relatively well on record in a Leonard Cohen/ Nick Cave-lite sort of way, come across more as the strained warblings of a drunk uncle hogging the karaoke mic at a wedding at times here. As a footballer, ‘King Eric’ was peerless. But as a pop star, he’s pretty hopeless. C’est la vie.
‘A bilingual swamp of gravelly gravitas’