The Corrs at the NEC, Birmingham, UK
12th January, 2001


This concert was my first with the Corrs in the UK.  It was also a seated
concert, so I didn't expect too much from it.  In fact, my plan was to
just sit back and enjoy the music for once.

After flying to Birmingham I met up with Brian, who had gotten the
concert ticket for me.  It was 11am, and I couldn't yet check in to
my hotel, so we went on a tour of the record stores in Birmingham.
After that I checked in and then followed a bit of rest, before going
to get something to eat and then making our way to the concert venue,
around 7pm.  Seated in the group with me and Brian were also Mark, Andy,
and TJ, as well as Lucy with her friend, who were sitting at the row
behind us.

We had 2nd row seats, but they were way off to the right, they weren't
even in front of the stage.  To give an idea to those who know the Corrs'
stage setup, Jim was sometimes blocking my view of Caroline.  We did
have a big screen in front of our seats, but the stage was still so
close that I spent most of the time just looking at the stage directly,
not the screen.

For once security didn't care about cameras at all, and I knew this
beforehand.  So I took my camera with me and ended up taking quite a
few shots during the concert.  A lot of them didn't turn out very well,
I had to use maximum zoom to get decent size pics, but there were some
pretty good ones.

Brian Kennedy was the warm-up act, he started around half past 7pm.
He wasn't bad, but couldn't really keep my interest.  He actually
reminded me of the lead singer for Marillion (known as h), he looked a
bit similar and his voice had a somewhat similar sound to his voice.
He played for about 45 minutes, and then it was time to wait for the
Corrs to come onstage.

At this point we did a bit of socialising, I managed to talk a bit with
Deborah and Kerena who had front row center seats for this concerts
(lucky!).  Since Deborah was going to so many concerts, I offered to
suffer instead of her at the front row seat, but she declined and said
she'd gladly take the pain.  Drat. :-)

Then it was 9pm, and the main show started.  The intro was the usual
of the band walking toward the camera in a corridor to the sound of the
Erin Shore.

Here's the set list, no surprises here:

intro tape
1. Only When I Sleep
2. Give Me A Reason
3. Irresistible
4. Forgiven Not Forgotten
5. What Can I Do
6. Joy Of Life
7. Dreams
8. Somebody For Someone
9. Hurt Before
10. I Never Loved You Anyway
11. Runaway
12. All The Love In The World
13. Old Town
14. All In A Day
15. Queen Of Hollywood
16. Paddy McCarthy
17. Radio
18. No More Cry
19. Breathless
-----
20. At Your Side
21. So Young
22. Toss The Feathers
Rebel Heart (tape)


Highlights and things worth noting:

Andrea did wander to the corner of the stage a few times to sing toward
us.  No direct personal contact for me that I could be certain of,
but I'd like to think she recognised my face at least.  Unfortunately I
didn't have my Hard Corr Fans banner with me this time, not that there
would have been that much space for it either at 2nd row.

The sound was okay, although quite heavy on the bass.  The reason for
that was that all the bass speakers were right in front of us, less than
5 meters (15 feet) away.

I was closest to Jim, and he seemed to be enjoying his time quite a lot.
He smiled quite a bit.  Once he sat down on the raised part of the stage
where Keith plays to play the guitar.  He also seemed to have quite a
bit of stage interaction going with Keith.

Like I mentioned earlier, I had planned to just sit back and enjoy the
music.  But when it was time for Joy of Life, everyone else in my row
got up and started dancing to the song, so I couldn't very well remain
on my seat either.  I wouldn't have seen anything as the front row got
up too!  So, I stood up with the rest. :-)

We stood up a couple of other times too during the faster songs, and
from Paddy McCarthy onward to the end of the show.  The people in the
center didn't stand up though, except towards the very end. :-(  (The
front row people were standing up, but nobody behind them...)

So, I didn't really stick with my plan to stay seated. :-)  But maybe it
was better that way, it *is* next to impossible to remain still on your
seat when something like Joy of Life or Old Town is getting played!

Andrea spoke a bit as usual after the first few songs, and told how
they'd shot the video for Give Me A Reason.  She then paused and said
that she was going to say something else but forgot, as is typical.
So the band then just went on to play the next song.

When Caroline came to the front to sing for ATLITW, there were lots of
shouts for her (some of it was from me, of course!).  Then when things
got quiet, Brian shouted "Caroline!" and she heard this and said "Yes?".
So Brian shouted back "Show us your muscles!", to which Caroline replied
with "I haven't got any".  Andrea and Sharon who were sitting beside
Caroline were laughing along with the rest of audience. :-)

Sharon has stopped playing the guitar during SFS.  I tried to shout
her about it (asking her to play the guitar etc.), but she was too far
away and there was too much crowd noise both before and after the song,
I don't think she heard it.

After the pause, when the band came back for the encores, Andrea
arrived last and apologised for being late.  She told she'd hurt her
knee when going backstage.  After that, she was doing the introductions.
She walked toward Anto and did a very good faked limp. :-)  There was some
kind of joke happening with Anto's introduction too, because after she
had said "On the lead guitar..." she burst out laughing and said quietly
"myself!" before saying out loud Anto's name. :-)  The other introductions
went as normal, but when it was time for Jim's, Andrea walked up to him,
then *past* him, until finally turning and pointing just as she was saying
Jim's name.  And finally, when Jim was doing Andrea's introduction,
he said "On lead vocals and tin whistle..." then held a pause, during
which there were screams from the audience saying "Andrea!" -- after
which Jim replied, "Oh yeah that's the name!"  Very funny. :-)

And then, after the encores, the concert was over.  It was a good concert,
but not anything superb.  But it was much better than I dreaded it might
be, with the concert being seated and all the negative comments I'd heard
about UK audiences being dead.  They weren't completely mad like people
in Spain (for example), but the people certainly weren't completely
*dead* either.  Anyway, I certainly missed being in the front row. :-)

Nobody got anything from the stage, as far as I saw.  The tin whistles
were packed away by a roadie.  I asked a security guy for the set lists
(meaning the set lists from the stage), and he gave me one out of his
pocket, one of the ones given to security.  Not as good as getting
something from the stage, but it's better than nothing.


Mikko