サッカー名選手のカントナ氏、今度は歌手挑戦　欧州各地でツアー

【リヨンＡＦＰ＝時事】サッカーイングランド・プレミアリーグのマンチェスター・ユナイテッドなどで活躍した元スター選手のエリック・カントナ氏が、今度は歌手として、自身の「感情」を伝えるコンサートツアーに乗り出している。（写真は仏リヨンのシアターでライブを行う元サッカー選手のエリック・カントナ氏〈右〉）
　カントナ氏はフランス・リーグ１のオリンピック・マルセイユで２度のリーグ優勝を飾ると、リーズ・ユナイテッドなどを経てユナイテッドへ移籍し、クラブをイングランドサッカーのトップへ押し上げた。引退後は俳優として数々の映画やＴＶシリーズ、ＣＭに出演し、絵画にも挑戦していた。
　現在はハスキーな声でメランコリックなロックを歌うシンガーソングライターでもあり、今回ピアニストとチェリストを引き連れて「Ｃａｎｔｏｎａ　ｓｉｎｇｓ　Ｅｒｉｃ」ツアーに乗り出した。イングランドとアイルランドでのライブを終え、週末に仏リヨンへやって来たカントナ氏は、ほぼ満員の小さなシアターで、オリジナル曲約２０曲を披露した。
　コンサート前にＡＦＰのインタビューに応じたカントナ氏は「歌うのはステージに上がるのと、オーディエンスのためだ。それが楽しい」「ステージに上がると、（オーディエンスとの）交流を通じて別の自分になれる」と面白さを語り、「そうした共有の瞬間」に何より興味があると話した。
　１０月末に英マンチェスターから始まったツアーは、この後スイスのジュネーブ、仏マルセイユ、パリへと続いていき、来年春にはセカンドツアーも控えている。
　「自分の気持ちや感情、夢や志を曲にしている。だからすごく個人的なものだ」というカントナ氏。オンラインではすでに４曲とそのＥＰがリリースされ、二つのツアー終了後には、２０曲前後を収録したライブアルバムも発売される予定となっている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/11/06-17:18）

Eric Cantona, football great, painter and lead actor, is adding rock star to his repertoire as he embarks on a concert tour to share his emotions.
Cantona won league titles with Marseille and Leeds before arriving at Manchester United in 1992 and elevating the club to the top of English football. Since retiring he has appeared in a string of films, television series and commercials.
He is also a song writer and is taking his music, rock with a melancholic flavour, on the road, with a pianist and a cellist accompanying his husky vocals.
After dates in England and Ireland, the Cantona sings Eric tour reached Lyon on Friday.
Cantona in red sports shoes and trousers, a long black coat and a small hat and making an effort that left him drenched in sweat, performed about 20 of his own compositions to a largely sold-out audience in the small Comedie Odeon theatre.
I do this to be on stage and for the audience. That's what I enjoy, he told AFP before the concert. On stage, I become someone else through the interaction with the audience.
He said he is interested first and foremost in this moment of sharing.
His tour kicked off at the end of October in Manchester and will soon take him to Geneva, Marseille and Paris, before a second tour scheduled for spring 2024.
The first songs I started writing were for my wife, the actress Rachida Brakni, he said.
I wrote my feelings...my emotions, what I dream of, what I aspire to. It's very personal.
- 'Metamorphoses' -
Cantona has made vocal appearances with French artists and lip-synched in a video for a song by Manchester City fan Liam Gallagher, but now is the frontman.
He has released four tracks and an EP ('I'll Make My Own Heaven') on the internet. A live album of around 20 tracks is due to be released at the end of the two tours.
Some songs are in French, some in English. On 'Je Veux' ('I want'), he sings that he hopes to be old/But surrounded by love/Happy people.
While his lyrics often evoke death, he says he is most interested in metamorphoses.
We live a thousand lives every moment, he said.
My songs always have this contradictory side between the dark and the bright. This is a way of trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
He says his musical pantheon includes Jim Morrison the lead singer of The Doors, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Tom Waits.
I like them because they're personalities and I want to be a personality, he says.
'Je Veux' is inspired by the semi-spoken 'The End' by The Doors.
I want loved friends/Night animals/Bats/Spiders/Morning and evening/Grief yes/But hope, he whispers.
That may have bamboozled some who still recall his bizarre when seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea press conference utterance of two decades ago.
However, his non-conformist side won over Florence Faubourg, 48, who waited in a group of around fifty fans outside the dressing room to greet the artist. She said she likes his personality and lyrics.
I can't explain it, but everything he does speaks to me, she said.
He holds his own on stage, said her husband David, a 52-year-old football fan who viewed Cantona, who played 45 times for France, as a rebellious player.