from=19th June 1998

Articles-Washington Post

Ireland's Corrs: The Reel Thing

Andrea’s chart-bound angels

By Richard Harrington (Staff Writer)

With a little bit of that fabled luck of the Irish, the Corrs could break through in America in much the way the Cranberries did a few years back. Their music is decidedly accessible -- folk rock with just enough traditional flavor to suggest the band's equal allegiances to its Irish cultural heritage and today's pop marketplace. At the Birchmere Wednesday, the Corrs showed why they are the best-selling Irish band in the world next to U2, tempering a program chock-full of finely crafted tunes with rollicking jigs and reels.

The Corrs -- four of them are in the band, including three strikingly beautiful sisters -- seem poised for an American success just as their new album, "Talk on Corners," is being released here. It's Caroline Corr who propels the group on drums and bodhran, and Sharon Corr who provides both graceful fills and gorgeous melodies on electric violin, with Jim Corr adding supple keyboard and guitar parts. But it's Andrea Corr who makes it all work, partly with a clarion voice filled with earnest emotion, and even more so with a charmingly charismatic presence that marks her as a star of the future.

Director Alan Parker discovered the band when it auditioned for (and won parts in) "The Commitments," and he later cast Andrea Corr as Juan Peron's mistress in "Evita." At times during her Birchmere set, she recalled that movie's star in her youth, when Madonna's performances were characterized by delightful mischief and merriment rather than mere artifice. For instance, Andrea made palpable both the jubilance and agony of romance, suggesting in songs like "When He's Not Around," the melancholy "No Good for Me" and the epic power ballad "Only When I Sleep" that while tumbling in love is a relatively easy maneuver, landing cleanly is a difficult task for even the most experienced emotional gymnast.

On the upside, the Celtic-reggae blend of "The Right Time" and ecstatic confessions like "Runaway" and "Hopelessly Addicted" celebrated the giddiness of positive connection, while the sassy, caustic "I Never Loved You Anyway" suggested that loving well is the best revenge against heartbreak. The Corrs also served up an exuberant Kirsty McColl-like anthem to youth, the appropriately titled "So Young," and a dramatic narrative, "Queen of Hollywood."

The evening's only misstep came in a somewhat pedestrian reading of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," done for "Legacy," the recent "Rumours" tribute album, and clearly a marketer's scheme to slip the Corrs into stateside pop radio.

The Corrs braced their set with three instrumentals, a forceful "Joy of Life," the traditional jig "Hasten to the Wedding" and a rambunctious reel, "Toss the Feathers." With Sharon Corr fueling the rhythmic fire with her elastic violin runs and Andrea Corr stoking the coals with dexterous tin whistle flurries, the instrumentals provided the night's most deliriously Irish moments.