It did look incongruous, but..

Watching the preliminaries to the France v England football match the other night it did seem odd that the brass band of the Republican Guard (drawn mainly from gendarmes) was fronted by a uniformed officer playing an electric guitar.

Jean-Michel Mekil: photo Franck Fife/AFP

As a tribute to the dead and injured in the UK terrorist attacks and in the Stade de France where a similar attack was thwarted on the day of the Bataclan atrocity, the band played the Oasis song "Don't look back in anger". Jean-Michel Mekil usually plays the trombone in the band, but is a great fan of Oasis and U2. The image of the chief sergeant, with his glasses, throat microphone and ear piece and military uniform was so far from "rocker" that it seemed incongruous. But his playing and singing, backed by the full band struck the right note with the 80000 strong crowd (including Macron and May).
Now he has been invited to play with his heroes when Noel Gallagher  and Bono head the list at the Stade on 25/26 July.
comments to taglines82@gmail.com