Concert review Stuttgart (October 26th, 2004)
I arrived at ca. half past seven and went in immediately. I had a good seat right from the stage, a little bit higher so I could see them very well - however it was Jim's side again and for once I would have liked to be on Sharon's side, but well, next time ;). The area where people could stand was about 3/4 full, and almost all seats were taken.
Around 8 o'clock the support act, a Polish group called Myslovitz, came on stage. In the beginning, they sounded quite okay, good even, but towards the end it got very weird. Let's just say if I wanted this level of noise, I could stand next to a breaking train with the same results...
I suppose it's cheaper to have a collective primal scream group on stage every night than pay a psychiatrist for it - however that last song made me wonder what the criteria are the Corrs look for in a support act: the three times I saw them live, they always had guitar-heavy alternative rock bands. In any case, they really seem to like Myslovitz since Andrea later thanked us for supporting them as well. If "support" means not to boo, then that is correct. That doesn't mean we were very enthusiastic about them, either, but that's always the fate of any support act, no matter how good they are.
After 8 or 9 songs they were finished finally and the roadies started to move around the equipment. Like in Munich four years ago, the drum kit was hidden behind a curtain; they have put all other musicians beside Sharon, Andrea and Jim on a small platform in the middle rear of the stage. There they have put the drums, the piano, the huge Jim drum, bass and lead guitar and Kieran with his accordion. The stage isn't overcrowded with 8 people on it, however it was remarkable how little attention was diverted to them now that Caroline is missing...
The Corrs started with the uber-cool intro for BBB, then the set list as follows:
- Humdrum
- Only When I Sleep
- Dreams
- What Can I Do
- Forgiven, Not Forgotten
- Angel
- Runaway
- Lunasa
- Joy of Life
- Borrowed Heaven
- No Frontiers
- Queen Of Hollywood
- Long Night
- Old Town
- Radio
- Summer Sunshine
- So Young
- I Never Loved You Anyway
- Goodbye
- Breathless
- Toss The Feathers
I was happy with almost all songs from BH except for LN maybe which still fails to move me. And I wondered why they have moved GB to the encore - it worked so well in Bonn, introducing the band during INLYA and then after GB they all leave the stage one after another. Now there's a strange break between GB and the "real" encore, since every fan knows the Corrs aren't really gone until they have bowed. I find it a bit strange, but if they think it works, oh well...
A and JOL were a total hoot, everybody was clapping and shouting, it was fantastic. SumS sounds so much better live - it's really a shame what Olle Romo did to this song during production! Sharon sang NF alone obviously, her voice has gotten much better since LR. When she sat down on the bar stool, she said hello again and then didn't know what to say for a second, until she had to laugh a little, it was very cute. The song was so wonderful and she got heaps of applause, righteously. I'm so happy they play BH, it sounds truly inspired and Jim's huge drums add a very welcome African note.
I don't quite know why they played QOH since it apparently is better suited for America anyway, and indeed the response was a bit laid back. OT on the other hand was a total blast again, Andrea shamelessly flirts with the audience and we all love her when she shakes her bum :D. They played SY with the LR encore, which means the audience is supposed to sing the "Ayayayay" part on its own, but since the average age was something around 40, not much happened in this department (also not when she tried to make us sing us along to RUN or "I was mislead" during INLYA) - I hope the first row did get it right at least.
RUN again had the cool Bit They Left Out in it, WCID the gorgeous guitar solo and D a terrific new intro. TTF was overkill in a positive sense, Jim had a drumming duel with Jason Duffy and hit his mega drum so hard the sticks flew off to somewhere on the stage! Later he gave them to some fans, as well as Andrea who gave away her tin whistle - I wish I had the chance to get the hands on one of those one day!
Andrea made her usual jokes, like we couldn't possibly mistake Jason for Caroline, could we?! Then she proudly announced that Caroline has had a baby girl a few weeks ago (and while she was saying this, I thought why the hell hasn't this appeared on TCOWS yet?!), and tried to say some things in German, very cute. I suppose "Stuttgart" is not as easy to pronounce as I thought :P.
She was wearing a red kilt, a black top and black boots (too cold to go barefoot?), and thankfully no panda eyes makeup. Sharon wore a short, black dress with a transparent thingy over it, she had a little shorter blonde hair than I remembered but looked very good - just like Jim behind his "pimp shades" ;).
The audience was rather old (average I'd say around 40) and not really cool. The row in front of me stayed empty till well after the support act had played, and they left after half an hour or so. There were other people who were too late but left earlier - which I really can't understand, you pay roughly 50€ and then you let it go to waste? They weren't singing and dancing at all, I was the only one in my row who was singing along (however badly :P). I got up during BR because it just had to be, but I saw during TTF that the people on the other side were hardly clapping... so lame.
I saw the band climbing down the stairs behind the stage because I could see that perfectly from my seat, they had to use a torch to light the way and Sharon took ages because of her funky green high heels ;). And I saw John Hughes mysteriously lingering around there before the concert as well.
Just one more thing: I have been a fan of this band for 5 years now, I have listened a million times or more to their songs, and yet, when they played RUN yesterday, I couldn't help but get goose-bumps. This song is 9 years old and since it was the first Corrs song I bought I thought I had played it to death. But hearing it live was like hearing it for the first time again - it was incredibly wonderful. As cheesy as it sounds - thank you for making that possible, thank you so much!