The Corrs, Sportshalle, Hamburg, Germany
31st October, 2000


I arrived with a group of German fans to the venue at a little after
3pm.  Some 10 people were already there, and there were three gates, so
we picked the one which had the least amount of people in front of it.
The weather was rather cold, it was windy, and there were occassional
showers of rain.  Not very pleasant for the forthcoming almost four
hours of waiting.

Bored with waiting, Chanh and I decided to check out the venue.  We
found out that we couldn't go around it, because the back of the venue
was behind a fence, apparently reserved for backstage activities.  We
were surprised to notice that the band was already in, doing the
soundcheck.  We hadn't heard anything from the front gate, but as we
walked towards the back of the venue, we could hear music coming out
faintly through the windows.  By peering in through the windowed side
doors of the venue, we were able to get a glimpse first of the hall, and
then even the stage.  There we spotted Sharon, and -- she was holding a
guitar?!?  "Huh?  What?  Is that really Sharon?"  "Yes, it must be..."
And then we saw her playing the violin, so all doubts disappeared.

Then someone from the security people inside the venue saw us peeking
through the door windows, and closed the venue's inner doors into the
hall, so we couldn't see anything anymore.

After that, it was pretty uneventful -- just waiting and waiting at the
gates, standing in the cold.  There was a trickle of people arriving,
and an occassional trickle of rain.  Fortunately the rain never became
a heavy downpour.  Still, it was not much fun.  "We must be crazy to do
this."  "Oh yes, we are."

While we waited, we noticed that apparently there were two other gates
that we had previously thought to be guest list entrances or something
like that.  They were off to either side from the three main gates, and
they attracted smaller groups of people than what were queueing behind
the main gates.

At a little before 7pm (the announced time), the gates were opened, and
we rushed in.  Ours wasn't the first gate to open, but I guess not the
last one either.  A mad dash into the venue, down some stairs (uhh, not
good, trying to run down stairs and not to fall over...), then through
the hall to get to the front row.  I made it, managed to get a very good
spot just a little to the left off the center, even closer to Andrea's
place than Sharon's.  The stage was very wide, which was good because a
lot of people fit in to the front row.  After a few seconds later Chanh
joined where I was, and then Sandra and Micha.  The rest of the people
from our group ended up some meters to the right of us, so we weren't
able to talk with them before/during the concert.

Then it was the usual wait for the concert to begin.  We already knew
that it would be Picture House doing support, instead of David Gray who
had cancelled at the last minute due to having a bad cold.  A about five
minutes to 8pm, Picture House walked on the stage.  We made them feel
welcome by shouting and chanting "Picture House" even before they had
had the chance to introduce themselves. :-)

Picture House played for about 35 minutes, they ended at exactly 8:30pm.
The stage crew rushed in to change the equipment on the stage.   There
was a big black curtain which hid half of the stage, apparently quite a
lot of the Corrs state equipment was already ready.

Finally, at about five minutes past 9pm, the lights in the hall went out
and the crowd let out a big cheer.  The concert started to the sound of
an orchestral version of Erin Shore being played from a backing tape,
and the two screens on either side of the stage showing the Corrs
walking towards the camera in a corridor.  (Those familiar with the
Lansdowne Road concert and others after that know it's the same intro.)
After Erin Shore's drum-part ended, the curtains were dropped and the
concert was finally on, with the band on stage.


Here's the setlist:

intro: orchestral Erin Shore

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


A note about their clothing, for those who care: Andrea was wearing
black pants and a glittering, black top.  Sharon had a long black skirt,
with a silvery top.  Jim had black pants and a black-grey striped shirt.
I forget what exactly Caroline was wearing, but it was something black
as well.  A simple black shirt, maybe.  So, not very colourful this
time, maybe a bit of a return to their former all-black style?

The stage was very big at the venue, and the band had a somewhat bigger
stage production setup too:
- 4 cameras (2 fixed, 1 on tracks in the fron, 1 portable)
- 3 screens (1 either side, one digital screen behind the stage)
- 4 spotlights hanging from the lighting rig, each operated by a man
- new lighting equipment (including bright "flash" lights)


Now, back to the concert.  The start seemed very usual, a lot like what
I had seen before previously in July.  In fact, I felt it was a little
bit boring, I was expecting something a little fresher.  There were no
suprises and nothing new at all for me until All In A Day and Somebody
For Someone.  I even started thinking they would play the same setlist
as before, only with a little different song order.  However, during and
after Somebody For Someone, the feeling started to go away, and as the
concert went on and on I felt happy as I realised that it was going to
be longer than the usual 90 minutes.  They played song after song of
"middle songs", songs which I would expect during the middle section of
the concert, and which are not show-enders.  I kept waiting for I Never
Loved You Anyway, but was happily more and more surprised each time
something else got played.

It was great to see them doing two encores.  When they walked off the
stage for the first time, I was thinking that we hadn't yet heard So
Young, Breathless or Toss The Feathers (I completely forgot about No
More Cry).  So I knew there was going to be at least a longer, 3-song
encore set, if not two encore sets.

The version of Paddy McCarthy deserves a special mention -- the
arrangement is completely different from the album.  It's a badly needed
change bringing freshness to the band's instrumental selection.  The
song started with a bass line, and then other instruments joining in,
until it was a full-blown rocking instrumental piece.  I couldn't
recognise the tune, I only knew it was familiar, but from where?  A
completely new arrangement of Haste To The Wedding or Toss The Feathers?
Some other well-known Irish traditional piece?  I wasn't sure, and only
after the song ended I was enlightened by asking the others who were
with me.  I really liked this performance of the song, perhaps even so
much as that I can say it was the high-point of the concert.


Other bits of happenings from the concert:

During Give Me A Reason, when Sharon has her violin solo (which is
really good, and got lots of cheers from the audience), Andrea sat down
at the few steps beside Caroline's drumkit platform.  She took off her
high-heeled shoes, and went the rest of the concert on bare feet!

Sharon got the guitar out for Somebody For Someone -- this produced huge
cheers and shouts of "Go Sharon!", at least from our little section of
the audience. :-)

Andrea started the introduction to Old Town with "This next song is
written by a friend of ours, Phil Lynott --" at which point I yelled
"YEAH!", interrupting her. :-)  So she asked, "You know what it is?"
After this there were at least about ten people from the front row
shouting "Old Town", so she just smiled and said the name of the song,
and then the band started playing.

Radio was the dance version, not the acoustic one (in fact more closer
to rock than dance, performed live).  It started with a bass drum beat
and slowly started to build up.  After singing the first few lines,
Andrea stopped singing and turned away from the audience -- apparently
she forgot the lyrics!  There was a moment of confusion, then Jim took
charge and the band stopped playing.  He said something like "Ok, we'll
try this again".  Andrea begged for forgiveness.  The crowd was cheering
a lot, apparently nobody minded much this bit of mistake. :-)  So, the
band started the song again, and this time Andrea got through it
properly.  Jim gave Andrea a thumbs-up sign when she got through the
part which had caused her difficulty before.

I personally liked the live intro to the song, do didn't mind at all
hearing it twice. :-)

The screens at the back showed various video footage bits and animations
in addition to the pictures from the cameras, as has been done in
earlier concerts.  I remember seeing the clock animations during The
Right Time, the old Hollywood footage during Queen of Hollywood, and the
video for Breathless was shown during the song performance.  Even the
sound of the plane approaching could be faintly heard as the song
started, and Andrea did her plane-impersonation at that time!

In general, even if the audience was pretty good, they weren't totally
ecstatic like at some concerts I've been to (sorry any Germans! I guess
your national character just isn't to be as loud as for some other
countries! :-).  Although I think the audience in the July Hamburg
concert was better too.  The first song that really got the audience
going was Joy Of Life (as usual).  After the song ended, the audience
was shouting so much the band had to wait a bit before they could go
into the next song.

I had prepared some banners:
- "1st Gig -- Don't worry, it will go fine!"
- "Boo! Happy Halloween!"

Neither of these were a huge success in my mind, not that I expected one
since I didn't think they were too original.  I did manage to get a
smile or two from Sharon for the first, and Jim definitely saw the
second as he mouthed "Boo" to me. :-)  Also, when leaving the stage in
the end of the concert, Andrea said "Happy Halloween!" in addition to
the usual "good night", so maybe that was because of my banner.

In addition to above, I had "Go Anto!" and "Go Keith!".  These made both
of the guys smile, especially Keith was happy and smiling to me. :-)  At
a later point of the concert, he noticed me watching him, and quickly
showed his tongue at me, which had me in a laughing fit. :-)

Also worth mentioning is that Chanh had a large Irish flag with him,
which had the words "Cead Mile Failte" (with correct accent marks) on
it.  And naturally I had my "Hard Corr Fans" banner, which was attached
into the front fence for the duration of the concert.

The band introduction was done between songs, before I Never Loved You
Anyway.  Andrea started with "I will now introduce the band... Even if
I guess some of you don't need that, since there are fans here." and
looked into our direction. :-)


Disappointments:

- Dreams and WCID getting played.  I think both have been played more
than enough live, even if they are both good songs.  And I do admit to
singing and clapping quite loudly along anyway. :-)
- The beginning of the concert was kind of bland, as described above.
- Toss The Feathers retains its place as the last song to be played.
It's good, but has also been played to death.
- The sound wasn't too good, it wasn't horrible, but not good either.
The sound was worse for Picture House, fortunately things improved.  It
sounded like they were playing in a large hall designed for sports use,
which they were. :-)
- Nothing at all was given out from the stage.  Not even a setlist, not
to even mention a tin whistle or drumsticks.


Finally, I will add the note that I've tried to write everything as
accurately as I remember.  Since I wrote this alone, I couldn't ask
anyone else if they remembered the same thing, or whether I left out
something, and so everything is based on my own more or less hazy
memories.  I'm sorry if there are any mistakes or omissions.


Mikko