There’s a French and Saunders skit from 1998 in which the comedy duo impersonate the Corrs, presenting the Irish family band not only as clones, but as moony-eyed new age folksters. It’s a fair representation of how the group were perceived at the time, their blend of soft rock and Celtic fusion planting them somewhere between Enya and Mirage-era Fleetwood Mac: the production of their earlier records definitely suffered from the blight that was mushy turn-of-the-millennium adult contemporary.
Tonight, however, as the band appear on stage amid the thunderous slams of Sharon Corr’s drums and a phasing synthesiser, crashing immediately into an epic rendition of Only When I Sleep, there’s none of that wispiness. The instrumentation is beefy, full of crunchy distorted guitars and toe-tingling bass, but the real grit is in frontwoman Andrea Corr’s voice. After skipping around the stage and twiddling with the black fabric of her dress, she steps up to the mic to deliver a full-throated vocal with gorgeous rough textures.
What’s most surprising is the emotional heft with which she delivers each lyric. As she sings Give Me a Reason, it feels like she’s warped back to 2001 and reliving whatever toxic relationship inspired the song. It’s the same for Forgiven, Not Forgotten, which takes on a gothic quality when sister Caroline drops her violin to harmonise on the chorus. Even the way Andrea plays the tin whistle, pushed close to the mic, has a determined intensity to it.
It takes the rest of the siblings longer to match her energy: the band fully sync up during a mid-section reserved for ballads and traditional Irish tunes, though the momentum falters a little here. Things pick up, though, for the final run: there’s a grungy angst to I Never Loved You Anyway that would make Olivia Rodrigo jealous. It’s so good, in fact, that it makes one of their biggest hits, Runaway, seem limp by comparison. Thankfully, Breathless lives up to its name: the song is exhilarating, the audience dancing in the aisles, much to the annoyance of security. The Corrs may once have been easy to parody, but their performance tonight is no joke.
• The Corrs play Utilita Arena, Cardiff, 12 November; then touring.
