Month: January 2023

King Charles’s Coronation: what music will be played at the coronation concert?

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When and where is King Charles’s coronation?

The coronation of the King and the Queen Consort will take place at Westminster Abbey on the morning of Saturday 6th May, and will be conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It launches a bank holiday weekend of celebrations, another centrepiece of which will be the coronation concert.

When and where will the coronation concert take place?

King Charles’s coronation concert will take place at Windsor Castle on Sunday 7th May 2023, the day after the coronation itself.

What will be the likely format of the coronation concert?

The concert, which will be broadcast live on the BBC, will feature some of the world’s biggest entertainers, performers from the world of dance, a laser and drone lightshow as well as spoken word performances from stars of stage and screen, which is appropriate given Charles’s love of Shakespeare.

Will it be open to the public?

A national ballot, held by the BBC, will provide the opportunity for several thousand members of the public to receive a pair of free tickets. Details of how to apply are yet to be released by Buckingham Palace.

Who will the performers be?

Among the performers will be the Coronation Choir, a group comprising amateur singers and members of the UK’s community choirs, including refugee choirs, NHS choirs, LGBTQ+ singing groups and deaf signing choirs. They will join The Virtual Choir, which is made up of singers from across the Commonwealth, for a special performance on the night. Plus, there will be a 74-piece orchestra, led by the Massed Bands of the Household Division and joined by the Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra. The names of other specific performers are yet to be announced, though it is looking likely that the concert will feature pop icons, who might include Sir Paul McCartney and Queen.

Although specifics have not been announced, we know that Charles is a fan of classical music. He played the cello as a student with the orchestra of Trinity College Cambridge, later recalling how he practised Beethoven’s 5th symphony in his bedroom, using a Berlin Philharmonic recording as his guide. Since then he has actively supported classical music and the arts, serving as president or patron of a large number of music ensembles. He also enjoys planning classical music for celebrations and helped his sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, to choose some of the music for their weddings. So, in addition to pop classics, the Coronation concert programme is likely to include a fair smattering of classical works. But which ones? In a 2019 interview for BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions, Charles said that his musical choices included Haydn’s First Cello Concerto and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – so we wouldn’t be surprised to hear excerpts from either of those two pieces.

There may well be a snippet of Handel’s Coronation Anthems, which Charles sang in 1978, while performing with the Bach Choir. And how about Hubert Parry, who formed the subject of a 2011 documentary that Charles presented himself? Can we expect to hear one of his choral corkers? In his documentary, Charles explained that there was much more to Parry than ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘I was glad’. So we might be treated to one of the British composer’s other choral works, such as the Te Deum, which was written for the coronation of George V in 1911, before being neglected for a century. Or Charles might decide to go orchestral, and request something like Parry’s rarely performed 5th Symphony. Then there are all the other pieces that Charles has named as favourites, including Wagner‘s Siegfried Idyll, Chopin‘s Piano Concertos, Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs and choruses from Bach‘s St Matthew Passion. So who knows. But whatever gets picked, one thing is likely: for classical music lovers around the country hoping that King Charles’s reign will help to bolster the art form, this coronation concert should be an auspicious occasion.

Photo: Getty

Jackson Dean is a thoughtful country star in search of ‘a good, big time’

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“He’s like if … Chris Stapleton had a son or something.”

It’s roughly 20 minutes into Big Machine Records-signed Jackson Dean’s sold-out headlining set at Nashville’s Basement East on a Thursday evening. A female 20-something fan has turned to her similarly aged boyfriend and, with transfixed, starry-eyed joy, is having a hyperbolic musical reckoning.

Onstage with a band of musicians that he’s primarily known since before he was old enough to dream of drinking or voting, the 22-year-old Dean is ripping his way through material from “Greenbroke,” his nearly year-old debut studio album.

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Dean’s age and status as a mainstream country music chart-topper (his crunching, heavy- and outlaw-rock-styled country track “Don’t Come Lookin'” topped Billboard’s Country Airplay charts before the close of 2022) would imply that at some point during the show, he would stop, turn around, and take a reel, selfie or TikTok video with his crowd to frame the moment for perpetuity.

That’s likely never going to happen while he’s onstage.

“I’m up there playing a live show with a four-piece band,” Dean says. “I’m not there to make you laugh and be a comedian. I’m there to sing my ass off, play my guitar, headbang and give you something raw [emerging] from my hands.”






© Stephanie Amador / The Tennessean
Jackson Dean was raised near the banks of Eastern Maryland’s Severn River. “Fifty yards off my back porch dropped into a bunch of nothing,” he jokes.

Dean was raised near the shore of Eastern Maryland’s Severn River between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. He is used to living a life where the joys of urban extravagance exist on the fringes of the fishing holes, hiking trails and wild animal refuges along stretches of Maryland’s Robert Crain Highway.

Dean’s five-year journey wasn’t from a Southeastern Conference football town to somewhere off Gallatin Pike in East Nashville. Instead, he’s evolved from being a teenage handyman able to splinter flint into stone knives, craft leather into bags and wallets and living in a tiny cinderblock house on his family’s property to being a Music Row-signed artist.

“Fifty yards off my back porch dropped into a bunch of nothing,” jokes Dean to The Tennessean when describing the property where he grew up with his family of bricklayers, attempting to engage with civilization peaceably.






© Stephanie Amador / The Tennessean
Jackson Dean practices with his band during a sound check at the Basement East in Nashville on Jan. 19.

“You have to walk through life lawlessly and never lose your wild,” he says. “The society we share is full of laws, though.”

Dean’s sound is inspired by days of highway drives with his father on the way to pouring slabs at commercial work sites, listening to modern country and oldies radio, and nights spent with his dad hearing bluesy dive bar bands.

Ask Dean to boil that down a bit deeper, and the root of the noise that left Nashville in stunned silence for large parts of Thursday evening gets mentioned:

Hearing Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s “Shuffle Your Feet” and “Ain’t No Easy Way” from San Francisco-based rock act’s 2005 album “Howl.” The album was released when he was 5 years old.

Dean’s been getting deep and heavy for quite some time.






© Stephanie Amador / The Tennessean
“I write songs that try to define intangible, intense things I’ve seen, done and felt,” Jackson Dean says.

The blend of Americana, country, gospel and rock on that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club record was deemed by Pitchfork as “T-Bone Burnett-inspired, south-thieving, gothic country goo.”

Fascinatingly, 2023’s mainstream country music scene is so slickly-polished that finding something that sticks has fallen back into favor.

“I need to make music that makes the crowd at my shows say ‘holy s—.’ I might not always get it right, but we all should be striving for that.”

As of late, with follow-up songs “Fearless” and “Wings,” he’s achieving his goals.

The words, and how they’re phrased, that are being laid upon Dean’s well-defined sonic bed are where the magic currently best lies in his work.

Dean’s only a year past legally being able to understand what the combination of sex and drugs can best achieve when combined with rock ‘n’ roll. That’s not to say he hasn’t spent the better part of a decade wrestling with understanding how they all interweave.

“I write songs that try to define intangible, intense things I’ve seen, done and felt,” he says.

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Dean is currently working with music publisher Arturo Buenahora Jr. at Little Louder Music and Luke Dick — a veteran Nashville singer-songwriter whose work includes Miranda Lambert’s “Bluebird” and Kacey Musgraves’ “Velvet Elvis” — on how to phrase his songs to better flow into cinematic visions that resonate as live performance and radio winners.

To make a long story short, it’s working.

Like his heroes Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, his songs being sync licensed to television and commercials has keyed his renown of late. Alongside being covered by Kelly Clarkson, his songs have appeared on Netflix’s “The Ice Road.” Plus, like fellow rock-tinged country favorites like Lainey Wilson, he’s also achieved visibility via Paramount’s hit series “Yellowstone.”






© Andrew Nelles / Tennessean.com
Carly Pearce performs with Jackson Dean at the Ryman Auditorium in October.

“I was sitting back in a hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico, having a drink and living my dreams,” he says. “It’s dope as hell, man. Kevin Costner? Lieutenant Dunbar from ‘Dancing With Wolves’ is being soundtracked by ‘Don’t Come Lookin’?’ That’s easily one of the coolest things to happen in my life.”

Regarding overall hopes for his sound and style moving forward, Dean offers a well-rounded thought.

“I’m trying to exist and produce at the center of the creation of two things people can’t completely explain: beauty and music,” he says. “When I achieve that, it’ll be the most intoxicating feeling in the world and I’m here for that. I’m a country redneck looking to have a good, big time.”

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Jackson Dean is a thoughtful country star in search of ‘a good, big time’

At MASS MoCA, a composer traces the pandemic’s arc through music

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During year one of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us were trapped inside, unable to do much but stare glossy-eyed at the news, contemplating an uncertain (and terrifying) future.

Composer Murray Hidary had it no different, except that he was productive.

​​Hunched over his piano, Hidary spent his lockdown playing and recording bits of sound that would eventually become “Distanced Together,” a new, immersive musical experience at North Adams’ Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art that invites everyone to briefly slide back to those early pandemic days, reflect, feel, heal, and — hopefully, finally — move on. ​

​​This Friday and Saturday will mark the culmination of Hidary’s solo recordings as they morph into a live abstract orchestral timepiece in the heart of MASS MoCA’s 10,000-square-foot Hunter Center.​

With 60 musicians arranged in 12 string quartets, taking on the shape of a circular clock, audience members will be invited to traverse Hidary’s composition from their own unique perspectives, as they did the pandemic.

“When I conceived of this idea, there was this element not just of the emotional rollercoaster we all went on, but of the experience of time,” Hidary says. “Sometimes time felt stretched, sometimes it felt extremely punctuated — there was an elasticity to time.”

“Distanced Together” composer Murray Hidary. (Courtesy MASS MoCA)

Fluctuating between unexpected moments of percussive intensity, then wide dilated openness, Hidary sees his score as a portal for people to walk through and re-experience the pandemic’s initial effects on time and our collective journey around it.

“You can almost hear in the piece the phases that we all went through, in terms of the initial uncertainty, tension and fear,” says Hidary. “Then there’s the triumph and hopefulness of the human spirit, and waves that go back and forth.​​”

As the musicians — a mix of players from New York City’s Contemporaneous ensemble, and North Adams’ local instrumentalists led by conductor David Bloom — do what they do best, audience members are free to roam.

“Some people might be walking clockwise, counterclockwise, going backwards or lying down on pillows scattered across the room, as if time has stopped for them,” says Hidary. “They essentially become these abstract hands on the clock.”

This is where the true meaning of Hidary’s work resonates, in the audience’s interaction, as each person individually, and communally, traces the arc of the pandemic.

“No matter what your experience of the pandemic was, either you or someone you know experienced some kind of hardship,” says Hidary, who, while composing, was heavily impacted not only by his own hardship — which included the death of an aunt in the first month of the pandemic — but by the stories he heard from friends and witnessed on the news.

“As much as we want to get back to life as normal and usual, until we address the pain, it’s always going to be there,” Hidary adds. “It’s very difficult to heal something we don’t feel through.”

​​​Hidary has built a career on helping people reflect, heal — even transcend — through music and meditation. In 2014, he created MindTravel, a music experience company that hosts events in which people move through a beautiful landscape and listen to improvisational music created by Hidary himself. MindTravel has since taken thousands of people on musical journeys across the globe. ​​

​​“Part of the experience is about creating a very intimate space for reflection and catharsis so that whatever we push under the surface, we can bring forward, address, and truly put behind us.”

Conductor David Bloom leads musicians from New York and North Adams. (Courtesy MASS MoCA)

Even though Hidary’s live show launches Friday, Saturday’s two performances, which fall on MASS MoCA’s annual “Free Day,” may be more indicative of this overarching goal, as upwards of 2,500 people are expected to visit the museum.

“We love to get something that’s really spectacular to offer our community when all the barriers are gone,” says Sue Killam, MASS MoCA’s director of performing arts. “The piece was written amongst the pandemic, but is really about people coming back together.”

After Saturday, “Distanced Together” will live at MASS MoCA through Feb. 4 as an installation consisting of thousands of feet of speaker wire connecting 60 speakers that take the place of each musician, effectively playing a specific section of Hidary’s lasting composition.

Hidary and his team have plans to bring the installation to major cities across the US, recreating the live performance with local musicians.

On a more personal level, the title, “Distanced Together,” refers to Hidary’s relationship to his younger sister, who died years before the pandemic, but whose memory resided with him during those long isolated days at the piano, making it clear that this work is also for people who hold long-standing grief.

“For those who don’t typically reflect on their experience, something will happen in their lives that thrusts them toward death, challenges, impermanence,” Hidary says. “One of the places people turn for answers is the arts, which can provide such solace, an embrace of the emotional condition. Especially music.”

“Distanced Together” will be performed live at MASS MoCA on Jan. 28 and 29, and will continue as a 60-speaker sound installation through Feb. 4.

15 more artists confirmed for popular music festival

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A second wave of artists have been announced for a popular Teesside music festival on Easter Saturday.

Stockton Calling is back on Saturday, April 8 over multiple music venues in the town including The Arc, The Georgian Theatre and Ku Bar. The day festival will showcase both local and national talent, with Teesside-based band Komparrison among the second wave of artists announced following the first line up being revealed back in November.

Cardiff-based punk band Panic Shack are one of the 15 bands announced for the day festival, after playing on Teesside back in October at Middlesbrough’s Twisterella festival. Headliners Circa Waves will close the Stockton event, with the Liverpool band well known in the music world for their songs ‘T Shirt Weather’ and ‘Stuck in My Teeth’.

READ MORE: Stockton Calling: Popular music festival announces first headline act for 2023 show

The newest wave artists announced for Stockton Calling include: Dilettante, Eevah, Esmae, Eyesore & The Jinx, Faye Fantarrow, Jen Dixon, Komparrison, Loose Articles, Nice Guy, Panic Shack, Scruffy Bear, Silvi, Sisi, Sugar Roulette, The Collectors and Viia.

Komparrison will headline BBC Introducing stage on the Saturday, set up at Sticky Fingers Late Bar and Burger Joint, with other Teesside bands and artists including Hartlepool’s Michael Gallagher, Stockton’s Gone Tomorrow and Newcastle’s The Pale White also taking to the many stages set up around Stockton town centre.






© Stockton Calling
Komparrison

Festival organiser Paul Burns said: “Our second wave of confirmed artists really demonstrates Stockton Calling’s commitment to showcasing fresh and talented artists. It’s 100% guaranteed that most, if not all, of these artists will walk away from playing our festival with a bunch of new fans.

“We’re stunned at the quality of the line up this year – especially those drawn from the ranks of our amazing local artists, making the selection process incredibly tough.”

Tickets for the festival, which takes place on Easter Saturday, are now on sale. Stockton Calling regularly sells out and the 2022 event enjoyed a record attendance following its successful return after an enforced two year gap.

Stockton Calling starts at 12pm on April 8, with tickets priced at £35. To book your ticket or for more information, visit www.stocktoncalling.co.uk.

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Roc Nation’s Reuben Vincent Releases Debut LP, ‘Love Is War’

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The debut album from the Jamla/Roc Nation signee, Reuben Vincent has released Love Is War.

An 11-song offering, production is handled by 9th Wonder, Young Guru, The Soul Council, and Vincent himself. The project also features guest appearances from Rapsody, Reason, Domani, and Stacey Barthe. 

“I worked on Love Is War for two years. Conceptually, Love Is War is an acknowledgment that as young black men, I feel like we aren’t taught, and given the tools of how to love properly. We don’t know how to love our people, our women, our brothers; and most importantly ourselves,” Reuben says.  “When you don’t know how to love yourself you can’t love others the right way, Love Is War addresses that. These last two years I’ve learned a lot about myself, but I still have much to learn. My goal is to love myself properly, and that comes with exploration (internally and externally). That is why I titled the album, Love Is War, because it is a constant battle to get to that center in your life.  We all battle ourselves to get to a place where we can both love and be loved.”

Stream Love & War below.

Roc Nation’s Reuben Vincent Releases Debut LP, ‘Love Is War’ was last modified: January 27th, 2023 by Meka



Darren McClure – The World Is Made Of Words

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Today’s piece of freely-available music comes via Yugen Art, an online repository of sound art that in some respects resembles a netlabel but is more aloof, publishing things online with an absolute minimum of fuss or extraneous (or even pertinent) information. i’ve written about works from the Yugen Art archive on a number of previous occasions (it includes such figures as Kenneth Kirschner, Francisco López and JLIAT), and today i want to explore The World Is Made Of Words by Northern Ireland-born, Japan-based musician Darren McClure.

i think the aspect i find most engrossing is its elusiveness. It doesn’t seem like a piece that should have that as a possibility, as its soundworld consists of just three things: a chordal element that hovers while gently pivoting around its immediate environment, a bass element that never moves above unfathomable depths, and a small-scale manifestation of quicksilver glitch. Yet despite the certainty of these three basic component parts, The World Is Made Of Words is music rooted in ambiguity.

It’s also music that, though it displays certain hallmarks of ambient, isn’t a conventional steady state, ending up somewhere different (though not necessarily far) from where it begins. For the first half of the piece it’s the chordal element that predominates. It floats in the centre of our perception, one moment seemingly quite clear, the next more vague, never static but subject to tilts and ripples running through its timbre. The glitch element skitters over its surface, occasionally accumulating such that the chord seems to have become dirtied, whereupon it periodically switches abruptly back into clarity. At times the chord moves beyond its initial confines but always returns back; the glitching also develops slightly, from random electrified tendrils into a gentle rhythmic pulse. All the while there’s an implied question about the connection between these two elements, particularly as at times (such as ~3:46) a chordal shift seems to trigger a corresponding change in the glitch’s movement. Yet less than a minute after this the glitch seems to be going its own way, independent of the chordal core.

It’s not until 3½ minutes in that the bass starts to make its presence felt. Initially it’s little more than a distant rumble, though gradually its weight increases such that it causes huge throbbing surges. It too suggests a relationship with the hovering chords, though not only does that come into question after a few minutes, but there’s also the possibility that the glitch and the bass are connected, like a tiny fish cleaving to a huge whale.

The midpoint of The World Is Made Of Words is where everything changes. The glitch, despite its ephemeral nature, briefly seems to be almost pulling apart the established soundworld. It hangs together, but the chord becomes unrecognisable, and before long the bass swamps everything. There’s detectable glitch movement semi-submerged in reverberation, as if the intensity of the waves of bass had the qualities of a liquid. As the music continues we become immersed ever deeper in this abyssal sound trench, a place where all other sounds speak as little more than traces of something tapping, until all that remains are the nebulous modulations of the multitude of bass pitches vibrating and jarring against each other, creating large swells and dark flutterings. Only towards the work’s close does it occasionally suggest the coherence of a drone, but it remains amorphous to the very end, finally receding into blackness.

Released in 2014, The World Is Made Of Words is available as a free download from Yugen Art.

George Strait Reveals He Wanted to Be ‘Like Merle Haggard or George Jones’

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While discussing career longevity, country music star George Strait revealed he always hoped for a long career like Merle Haggard or George Jones.

He’s earned dozens of number-one hits on the country charts and is among the artists with the most gold-and platinum-certified albums behind Elvis Presley and The Beatles. He also turned 70 in 2022 and is still popular with his fans, so he seems to have durability in the bag.

Here’s what he had to say about it.

George Strait | Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

George Strait said his secret to success was believing in what he was doing: ‘You have to believe in yourself.’

In an interview with Cowboys and Indians Magazine, Strait shared his secret to longevity, though he wasn’t confident that’s what it was. He noted, “Staying focused and believing that what you’re doing is good [and] is important; you have to believe in yourself.”

“I always felt like I knew what worked for me and what didn’t,” he offered, adding, “That might not be the key to longevity — but who can honestly even say what might be?”

Strait, who’s been married for more than 50 years, explained that he hasn’t been able to play live shows as he used to, which changed how he views his time onstage with his fans. “It’s kind of a Catch-22 situation for me,” he shared. “I miss it sometimes, but I know if I went hard like I used to, then I would wind up burning myself out.”

He added, “I think I’m on the right pace now, but I do love playing live shows. There’s nothing like it and words can’t describe the feeling you get playing for a big audience. I’ve got great fans, and I count my blessings that I’m still able to do that.”

George Strait hoped for a career like Merle Haggard or George Jones: ‘Those guys are still relevant.’

(L-R) George Strait and George Jones | Ed Rode/WireImage

Strait explained that when he thought of longevity, he “just always knew that [he] wanted a career like Merle Haggard or George Jones.”

“I wanted to still be relevant when I got older,” he said. “Those guys are still relevant and always will be in my book.”

According to CMT, Jones scored almost 80 top-10 and 10 number-one country singles in 50 years as a solo artist. And, per the Country Music Hall of Fame, Haggard “stands, with the arguable exception of Hank Williams, as the single most influential singer-songwriter in country music history. He was one of country music’s most versatile artists, stylistically mining honky-tonk, blues, jazz, pop, and folk.”

George Strait is a consistent country music artist

According to the Country Music Hall of Fame “Strait’s musical consistency and unadorned performing style continue to make him as one of American music’s most popular artists. He has earned forty-four #1 Billboard country hits, more than any other artist, and ranks third — behind Elvis Presley and the Beatles — among artists with the most gold-and platinum-certified albums.”

With a new album in the future for 2023 and still touring at 70, Strait has undoubtedly solidified that long career he hoped for. So, what might be next for him? “I have given serious thought to a documentary, although I tend to procrastinate these days, so right now, a thought is all it is,” he told Cowboys and Indians.

He also shared, “I love to be outside. I play a lot of golf now so, if the weather is good, I’m usually doing that. I just came back from a golf trip to Scotland, and it was amazing.”

GoldenEye 007’s incredible pause music was written in just 20 minutes

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© Image: Rare Ltd.


Even before the announcement that retro multiplayer classic GoldenEye 007 will come to Nintendo Switch and Xbox on January 27, fans were already celebrating its soundtrack — especially the song that plays when you hit the pause button. After a viral TikTok bit about that song made the rounds last December, fans everywhere have been doing finger-gun dances in their living rooms. (Or maybe that’s just me?) This week, the song’s composer Grant Kirkhope revealed the process behind his masterpiece — and that the real difficulty wasn’t the composition, but getting the song onto the Nintendo 64.

Kirkhope’s dive into the song’s history began when Nintendo of America’s official Twitter account shared a clip of the song, in anticipation of the game’s release on the Switch. The composer then shared Nintendo’s tweet, saying, “haha … glad you like it! Could this piece rival the DK Rap???” After that, he described the process of composing and programming the song:

After dropping the absurdly impressive fact that the song apparently took him only “20 mins to write,” Kirkhope went on to shout out the rest of the musicians who worked on the game. He was the composer for about half of the game’s songs, and his colleague Graeme Norgate did the rest — except the elevator music, which was composed by Robin Beanland. All the GoldenEye 007 songs are bangers, but there’s just something wistful and unforgettable about Kirkhope’s pause music.



BLACKPINK, Pharrell Collab? K-POP Group Spotted Hanging Out In Paris With Singer, THIS President

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Twitter came alive when BLACKPINK graced the streets of Paris earlier this week, and all for the right reasons!

The four-membered South Korean girl group was invited to perform a charity event, where they met hitmaker Pharrell, Billboard reports.

In fact, according to the South Korean publication Koreaboo, Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo, and Rose hit it off with Pharrell and even posed for a group picture-taken by none other than French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Le Gala des Pièces Jaunes,” which took place at the indoor arena Zénith Paris inside La Villette, was chaired by France’s first lady Brigitte Macron; the event benefits the French Hospital Foundation.

According to reports, there might be a reason why the K-POP group was invited to perform-perhaps because France’s first lady is a huge fan of their music.

She was seen attending their “Born Pink Tour” in Paris in December last year. Perhaps it was also then when they discussed performing for the charity event.

READ MORE: Miley Cyrus’ ‘Flower’ Power: Singer Achieves Milestone After a Decade, What Took So Long?

Possibility?

It looks like BLACKPINK is really on the up and up these days, with their world tour in full swing, they managed to squeeze in this performance at the charity event, and rub shoulders with the likes of President Macron and Pharrell.

This isn’t actually the first time BLACKPINK and Pharrell met. Back in 2019, they all met for the first time, and fans have been hoping for a collab since then, but it seems like it hasn’t happened yet.

On the other hand, instead of going crazy about the possibility that the girls might have a collab with the “Happy” singer, everyone can’t stop talking about President Macron.

“Not the President himself took the pic,” a fan wrote.

“Not the President of France was taking the pics. I’m crying. They’re really France nation gg,” another added.

“Holds the phone like my dad lol,” a fan joked.

READ ALSO: Drake Apollo Theater: NYPD Finally Addresses Why They Were Filming Fans-It Was For THIS Reason

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