Eric Cantona definitely has more than one string to his bow. After his career as a footballer, and as he continues his career as an actor, the former international has decided to embark on a new artistic adventure. At 57, “The King” as he was called in his heyday at Manchester United (1992-97), sings in English on “The friends we lost” (“The friends we lost”), available on the platforms.
The rocky voice of the former player of the France team ends up melting into this melancholy piece with piano and strings. This title prefigures a series of concerts in the fall, “Cantona sings Eric” (“Cantona sings Eric”), before an album on the horizon 2024. The tour will logically begin in Manchester, the city which made him king of the football. Manchester United fans still consider him a hero in their pantheon. His “kung-fu” kick on an opposing supporter in the stands in the middle of a match in 1995 (which earned him a long suspension) had in no way damaged his aura. “That’s what I like, me, live. That’s why I do it. Because there will certainly be plenty of imperfections, plenty of accidents. Where there is never an accident, there is never a moment of genius”, he explains in Le Parisien. His tour will then pass through Ireland, Switzerland and France.
Chance of the calendar, the ex-N7 of ManU releases this piece while another figure from Manchester offers an album on Friday. Noel Gallagher, ex-half of Oasis (he has been angry with his brother Liam since the group split in 2009) is releasing “Council skies”, a new solo album. The Gallagher brothers are fans of Manchester City, United’s rival club, but do not hold it against him, since Cantona played in Liam Gallagher’s “Once” clip. Music is not unknown territory for Cantona. In France, his voice has already been heard with the group Dionysos, in songs by Bernard Lavilliers or Rachid Taha. But so far, his conversion had mainly led him to cinema or TV screens. “Looking for Eric”, where he plays himself, directed by Ken Loach, is a centerpiece of his fairly extensive filmography.
Recently, Cantona made people talk about him in France in the TV movie “The Colossus with Feet of Clay”, with a main role inspired by the career of former rugby player Sébastien Boueilh, raped as a teenager (broadcast on TF1).
