Original subtitles

Dublin, 2005. The beginning of a new chapter in the story of The Corrs.

It has been 15 years since this Irish family band

came to the attention of the music world.

They have won over millions of fans with a fusion of traditional' Irish music and pop.

The Factory. The Corrs are back in the rehearsal moms they've used many times.

They've a mini-tour planned, where they?! fly out songs from their next album, Home.

They'll be performing in Bonn, Monte Carlo, the Montreux Jazz Festival

and the G8 concert.

Nowadays they take filings in their stride, but they weren't always so laid-back.

The beginning was mad. It's all been kinda crazy.

We were excited and yet nervous and everything was a big deal.

There's nothing like it.

It's been brilliant.

We had no idea what was coming. We just thought it was a laugh.

I do have some sort of vague recollection.

Looking back, we were taking ourselves very seriously.

All through our childhood, musicians came in and out of our house.

Mum and Dad leaving a couple of nights a week to gig.

We used to say that Mum and Dad had gone to sing.

They would go at the weekends.

I remember Mum putting on her rollers in her hair and doing her make-up.

They'd do that every weekend, as well as my father having a full-time job.

It was a lot of work, but they really loved it so that was their life.

They did everything that was in the charts at the time.

They did The Carpenters, Eagles.

They'd do The Police, Every Breath You Take.

Brotherhood of Man, you know, and that. Stevie Wonder, everything.

I mean, I suppose they really nurtured the love of music in us.

Singing was my hobby. That's what I did all the time.

Even before school in the morning and when I got home,

I'd listen to music and sing with it.

So, you know, I think... I think I wanted to be a singer, yes.

We all studied music at home mostly.

Our father taught us all piano. That was our first introduction to it.

All those terrifying piano lessons have paid off at last.

You don't know the story of the terrifying piano lessons.

I started learning classical violin when I was six.

There was an amazing teacher in Dundalk Father McNally a priest.

He's taught a lot of pupils who end up in great orchestras around the world.

I think Mum and Dad gave us a really happy childhood and I remember being home.

A lot of my memories are Andrea, as well. We were brought up close together.

Jim was off doing his thing.

Sharon was always there, but she was three years older

so she had slightly different things going on in her life.

I suppose I remember just... stealing biscuits and...

Eating ice... Having a good time. It was good.

In the late '80s, while Caroline and Andrea were still at the Dun Lughaidh Convent,

Jim and Sharer: were already earning a living.

Sharon worked evenings in their aunt's bar, McManus's.

Wei! known as a local music venue, Sharon and Jim often performed there as a duo,

fitting it in with the several other bands Jim played for and Sharon 's day job.

I managed a record shop for probably about a year and a half,

which I loved because so much music was available to me within the record store.

So I loved that and I loved getting some really independent music in

and getting different stuff for the customers

because I think, at the time in Dundalk, you really just got the mainstream.

You didn't get much different so I was interested in that.

I did that, then I worked in the bar at nights.

It was a great time.

We were having a 301 of fun and we were working in our aunt's pub.

Even at school, I worked in the pub at weekends,

then when we left school, we still worked there.

People would say to you, �Are you going to college? What's your plan in life?�

We'd say, 'We've got to work on this band." And I remember people just going, 'What?'

Jim was older, more experienced, he'd played with a lot of bands.

He was more experienced chordally, how to put a song together.

Also he was much more technically minded. He had the studio set up.

Melody and lyrics, I suppose, Andrea did a lot more of that.

We were a}! still quite young. Andrea was 16.

We were still in school when we first started so we were all just learning.

We were all learning together in a lot of ways.

I was always dabbling with writing on the piano.

I was only able to really launch into it properly when I got my first recorder,

a little PortaStudio, TASCAM PoltaStudio, and then I was able to start writing properly.

The idea of being able to overdub different parts onto a tape,

it was heaven for me, I loved it.

Jim collected all the gear for the studio.

He had rented a house very close to our family house in Dundalk

and I remember he had boxes on the walls for the soundproofing.

It was a room, basically. AH it was a room in a house.

A very cold house. I remember that.

We spent all our time there. People thought, 'What are they doing?"

He collected a lot of gear. A small S-track studio, whatever he needed.

He'd a few synthesizers and all this sort of stuff.

We used to just write the music, sit down and write the music and try and record it.

They worked hard at perfecting their playing and their songwriting.

But as yet, there were no plans to take their music beyond Jim's makeshift studio.

In 1990, the director Alan Parker auditioned local bands for his film The Commitments.

- Who are your influences? - Barry Manilow.

It was the catalyst they needed. The Corrs became a band.

- Te� the camera your name, can 'gnu'? - Sony'?

- Tell the camera your name. - Jim Corr.

- This your first time you've sung in public? - In public, yeah.

Alan Parker himself conducted interviews in the kitchens of The Waterfront,

a well-known Dublin music venue.

- Caroline Corr. - How old are you?

I'm 17.

- Just tell the camera your name. - Sharon Corr.

I was terrified. Just like, you know, I don't know,

a deer in the headlights, you know.

I was really terrified. So was Jim.

So was Caroline. Andrea was 15, going, "I'm great." She was, you know...

In The Commitments, they were blink-and-you'll-miss-us roles.

Well, for me, anyway. I can barely find myself in the movie.

Andrea had a more substantial part.

- Where are you going? - Out.

- Can I borrow your hairdryer? - Go and shite.

Leave my aftershave alone.

The band came together. That's the significant thing about the movie.

It was beginning of us meeting John, our manager.

I did the music on The Commitments as... They gave me a title.

Music Supervisor, no, Coordinator, some title.

Ros Hubbard had asked me... No, she hadn't.

John had a band called Minor Detail with his brother Willie.

And they broke up and John fanned a band called The Hughes Version.

I had a band. Jim had just joined my band. That's how desperate he was!

I liked his music and I started actually to produce with him

and record his music because I had a little studio.

And so myself and John became friends prior to him becoming a manager of ours,

which only happened when we auditioned for the film.

Ros Hubbard, who I've known forever, she's a casting agent.

She was casting the movie.

They auditioned. Everybody performed on the stage.

Then after that, Parker being Parker, said everybody who he saw he wanted to read.

So we all went down to the kitchens. Having seen all that, Ros Hubbard,

the casting director, said, "You've got to manage them."

We'd all decided amongst us, OK, John's going to be our manager

and John's going to take on this band and it all just happened.

It was the last thing on my mind.

I've said before, I never set out to be a manager.

It was probably a momentous time.

Really, at the time, we thought, "This feels right." I think we just went with our feeling.

They hadn't a clue what they were heading into and I had some idea.

I had been there or thereabouts.

You don't want to harp on about how difficult it is it's great fun

but it's not an easy life.

Did they know that? Ask them. I'm sure they'll lie and say, "Yes, we knew."

Nobody knows. You don't know how successful it's going to be.

That's the paradox of the whole thing. You can't know.

If you knew beforehand, therein' be no courage or striving involved.

You'd stop 'cos you knew it wouldn't work or just coast 'cos you know it will work.

We didn't know if it'd fail or work, we just did.

The composer of Riverdance, Bill Whelan, was a friend of John's

and he got Bill Whelan to produce our demos.

The fiddle wasn't originally a part of the Corrs thing.

I suppose because we just didn't think of it. We kind of thought...

Everything was really pop orientated at the time and it was really techno.

There was an lot of technology involved.

Everything had really gone away from acoustic instruments.

You know, bar the guitar.

But it was all about keyboards and drum machines.

I don't know who suggested it... It could've been John Hughes, our manager.

He said, "Sharon plays the violin, doesn't she?" "Yeah."

'Well, why aren't you using it?�

So we did and then we came up with this blend of traditional Irish

within our music.

So...

Which was, I suppose, the thing that separated us

from every other band around at the time.

In 1992, they were back at The Waterfront.

This time it was the venue for their first ever public performance.

It was packed out with family and friends,

there to show support for a nervous band.

I remember the Waterfront gig very well. Everybody was petrified.

I actually think it was our first gig.

Would you welcome, please, all from one family onstage,

their first gig: The Corrs!

At the time, I was playing keyboards. After that, I'd learn drums with a friend.

I had a boyfriend who'd played drums.

I remember playing with him and just learning a few beats.

Jim went, "This'd be great in the band. Why don't we do this?"

So I ended up playing the drums and I really loved it.

- Find you're getting blisters? - No, I just keep using the gloves and don't.

Make sure that I don't.

We had a lot to learn, an awful lot to learn about ourselves

and exactly what we'd do onstage.

The Corrs' unique sound was developing fast.

It was time for their first professional gig at Whelan's Bar in Dublin.

That night, in the audience, was VIP guest Jean Kennedy Smith,

American ambassador to Ireland and sister of John F. Kennedy.

She was so impressed that she invited the band to play in Boston and New York.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

After that, we decided we would go over to Los Angeles and New York

and visit record companies and try and get some sort of a deal.

A few were interested, but not very interested.

On the last day in New York, at Atlantic Records, we met Jason Flom

who really loved the music.

He wanted to try and get us to meet with David Foster

who was a name that, at the time, we weren't really that familiar with.

We were told he was working with Michael Jackson in the Hit Factory

and that it was very difficult to see him because of the obvious security.

So Jason tried to set up the meeting and wasn't able to do it.

We actually, with our manager John,

we took the decision to actually arrive and crash in on the session at the Hit Factory.

And we used our Irish charm and we got in the doors of the Hit Factory.

I mean, we dressed up very, very well to try and make an impression and we got in.

We sat in the lobby waiting for David. Sure enough, he came out.

I happened to be walking into the lobby by chance.

The group had taken it upon themselves to come to the Hit Factory

and wait and wait and wait on the hopes that I would come out.

And I did and I took a look at them and here's these three beautiful sisters

and their handsome brother.

They had their instruments with them and said, �Hi, we're here."

I went, "Oh, right, The Corrs. Yeah, I remember getting the phone call."

I was so spellbound by their looks,

I said, "Let's go upstairs and play for me."

They played for me. They did some acoustic music.

They played a tape first. That sounded incredible.

They said, 'We want to play you some music."

They had the violin. Sharon on the violin, Andrea on the tin whistle.

Caroline on the bodhran drum. I didn't know what a bodhran drum was.

And Jim on piano and guitar.

And they just blew me away.

We played Forgiven, Not Forgotten for him. I think that impressed him the most.

We sat around a piano, me with the bodhran, Andrea with the tin whistle,

Sharon on the violin and Jim on the piano and we just played for him.

We did the harmonies and I think he loved the harmonies. I think that's David's thing.

Vocals and harmonies, he's amazing at doing that, and he loved it.

So that got us in the door, anyway.

I was just hooked, I mean, completely hooked.

You just know right away when you're looking at real, real talent.

This family, no small testament to their parents, Jean and Gerry,

just has an abundance of talent.

They're also really quality human beings

and those two separate issues made it a slam dunk for me.

There was no question. That day I decided, for sure, that I was going to sign them.

The band flew back to Dublin. John and David spent months locked in negotiations.

Finally, at the end of 1994,

The Corrs were signed to Foster's own label, 143,

a subsidiary of Atlantic.

Andrea has the kitchen sink with her. She has the heaviest suitcase of all.

In January 1995, The Corrs left Ireland for California

to begin recording their first album.

It'd be several' months before Jean and Gerry saw their children again,

a taste of wings to come.

Family fife would never be the same.

Forgiven, Not Forgotten was our first studio album.

We had written those songs over a five-year period.

We lived out in Malibu in Los Angeles for about eight months while we recorded that.

That was a new experience for us.

In October 1995, Forgiven, Not Forgotten was released.

Once Forgiven, Not Forgotten was completed,

The Corrs were initiated into the promotional process.

This meant a gruelling round of appearances in the US and beyond,

sometimes taking in three cities a day.

It took them to most of the United States

and to venues in Europe and Australia.

"about going to LA, which you'll probably think, like, 'Why are we going to LA?"

We are now saying later than the 11th March, well...

The reason people are so keen on The Corrs is twofold.

One, because the music is very appealing to all ages.

Two, because they work incredibly hard.

They are the label's hardest-working band,

with the possible exception of Phil Collins,

who's always worked hard.

They're certainly the hardest-working group. They're unfailingly professional.

The band began their world tour in Ireland where they had a growing audience.

That first tour of Ireland was nerve-racking.

So really, really scared getting onstage.

Ifs madness 'cos going to Dublin was a big deal to me.

I used to get home from Dublin going, "Phew!

"Thanks be to God that's over with. I'll rest tomorrow."

It was the Big Smoke. That's the madness of how much we've travelled now.

I think about my slight fear of coming up to Dublin

and the happiness of getting back to Dundalk.

So we go from that to absolutely non-stop work.

Moving everywhere, never at home and I remember John telling me

there'd be a time when we'd never be home,

we'd be touring all the time and I sat going...

That's the most horrible thought, you know.

But it worked out. I was just a scaredy-cat.

As venues got bigger, so did the band.

They recruited Anto Brennan, lead guitar, and Keith Duffy on bass.

Keith and Ante are with us from the beginning. We're a team.

They fitted us personality-wise. You had to spend a lot of time together.

Keith and Anto are like our old road dogs at this stage!

They're part of our family, you know, in every sense of the word.

They came into the studio, apparently,

and they started playing with us.

They were, like, "What's the story here? Are we playing or not?" Jim was reticent.

I don't know if he said this, but he was a little reticent about other members of the band.

You know, we needed to develop a bit so they started to work with us.

There's nothing like it. There really is nothing like the feeling of playing to...

It's not only...

You get a buzz off the crowd and seeing what you can do,

but essentially what you realize...

This is what you're doing it for, this is why...

The Forgiven, Not Forgotten tour began in Ireland, taking them back home to Dundalk.

Going back to play in Dundalk was great. We were still new to the whole thing.

We're nervous, it's home.

We're looking forward to it. It's nice to finally get back to play here.

Some of our music teachers are downstairs so that'll be interesting.

...a few skeletons in my closet sitting in the audience tonight.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A big welcome home for The Corrs.

This is off the record 'cos I'm engaged. Very easy to look at.

- No problem. - Even the man!

It's Dublin. It's scary!

The Irish leg finished at me National Stadium in Dublin.

I can't even speak! Caroline, come on, talk to them.

We have to wait till we get up there.

Before-hand it's just waiting around, doing your thing.

It's a really big point in our career, the main point in our career.

We've been working on this for six years

and now we're playing in the Stadium in Dublin,

in the capital city, and 2,500 people.

It's a lot and it's great that we've sold all those tickets.

- Oh, my God! - You hair is great. All the hairs are good.

Don't be afraid to dance to this!

I came offstage and my hands... I'd never done a tour before.

My hands were in bits.

We were all making mistakes. A mixture of being petrified and happy at the same time.

Then it was on to Australia, Denmark, Japan and Canada.

The first territory we got really big in, I think, was Australia.

Touring there, it was incredible, the reaction we got.

They'd' been touring solidly for over a year",

but they had one mere important gig.

New Year's Eve 1996 at The Point in Dublin.

I'm coming down with some sort of a cold that Sharon is wrecked with.

That's right, yeah.

Caroline and Andrea have got it, as well. Otherwise I'm grand. Good Christmas.

Glad it's over, though. God, there was some seriously heavy socializing.

- We don't have a violin player. - No?

- Where is she? - We don't know. She's never been late.

Sharon Corr, she's nearly three-quarters of an hour late.

So it's looking good, the piano monitor is down, we don't have a violin player.

Looks like everybody" be snowbound. Happy New Year.

- OK, she's here. - We'll try and get a doctor here.

I was at the doctor yesterday. I just have to fight this thing.

I'm a lot better. I had a really high fever. I couldn't get out of bed. I could hardly walk.

Everybody has it.

I think we're gonna need to boost the backing vocals tonight.

Something I can do in front of a camera

put make-up on, make myself look better!

So if you take...

Please.

We were going to cancel some shows

and we should have cancelled, they were so sick.

But we weren't allowed.

No, no, no, no, no, no, please go away! I mean it.

Never before, I don't think, could I have said that� I don't care.

I don't care if we don't sell any albums. Right now, I don't care.

- Are you gone yet? - Yeah.

Good.

We been a rewarding year, ifs been a very good year, but we need a break.

We don't just need a week off or two days, like we've been getting, we need a month.

But we can't have it for the moment. We're doing The Point tonight.

That is the most amazing thing for a band to get to do.

Like, being from Ireland, that's where all the major acts come, they play The Point.

But I've been bedridden for two days. I still feel terrible.

I think, "God, why does this have to happen just when I'm about to do The Point?", but...

We shouldn't really be complaining. We could be doing nothing at all.

The objective this year was to sell this album,

literally from door to door or country to country or stage to stage.

The objective next year is they have to write hit songs, radio hit songs.

Then we're gonna have to do the whole thing all over again.

Amen.

Like any other second record, it was "the second album syndrome".

Most... Second time round, people just can't sustain it.

You spend your fife writing your first mom'.

You've a year to write your second and it doesn't work.

This album had to mean everything, you know,

so there was a lot of going back for more songs,

you know, to try and write the hit.

That usual elusive...

kind of mad thing that record companies say, Where's the hit?"

Record companies want one thing, artists another, managers something else.

What I and the band want were probably identical.

What the company wanted was different, but that's a healthy relationship.

To record the album Talk on Corners, they returned to California

to repeat the success that they'd had with David Foster:

Can we hear it from the top with the drums in?

- It's not good enough, just not good enough. - Not good enough?

No.

The making of this album was fraught with conflict, both within the band

and between the band and the record company.

Very good.

Also on the second version...

Atlantic were not convinced that the songs the band had Gerrard

contained that all-important hit single.

This is a track we wrote yesterday. Make You Mine, something like that.

And it's going very fast.

It's going great. Hopefully a hit.

Talk on Corners was ready for release. The label felt It wasn't finished.

We had gone back to do some more.

We said, "That's it, we're done. We knew we're done. It's not gonna get any better."

The company wanted to leave So Young off the album.

We had to fight to get it on.

It ended up being a hit in a number of countries.

They weren't too fussed on What Can I Do.

That also was a hit in quite a number of countries so...

Sometimes you have to fight your corner

and we did as regards those two songs, thankfully.

We put out the record'. It entered the British charts at seven.

It had done very respectably. It hadn't been a monster, but it certainly hadn't been a flop.

We got through the Christmas

and you could see file record was going away, it'd had its fife.

At that point, we got... The success was relatively small in the UK and in Europe.

We'd done extremely well over in Australia and a couple of other countries and Ireland,

but yet we had to break the UK.

Hello, John Giddings.

I put them on at Shepherds Bush and nobody had heard of them.

I'd put posters up all around London. People said, 'Who are this band?"

The point was to create a profile.

We'd started selling nut the Town S; Country Club,

but we wanted to get to the next level.

So we said, �What do we need to do? Play somewhere bigger.

�How do we play somewhere bigger? We're not big enough."

We couldn't get big TV in England,

couldn't get Top Of The Pops or any of that stuff.

Having been around the world, I'd seen that on Patrick's Day,

on a global basis, people were looking for anything Irish.

I'd figured, we're as Irish as you get

so why not have a concert on Patrick's Day

and go to the BBC and say, Would you broadcast this?"

I spoke to our agent, John Giddings.

We came upon the idea of booking the Albert Hall on St Patrick's Day.

Everybody wanted a good time on St Patrick's Day with an Irish band.

He said, "I have you the Albert Hall." I was expecting a small club.

It was sort of panicky but brilliant.

I went to the BBC and the BBC...

to their lasting brilliance, I suppose, said, �Sure, we'll broadcast it.�

When you look back on it, that was a defining moment in their career.

Live TV from the Albert Hall.

They sold out the Albert Hall. They were live on TV and it took off.

We got our shot. They broadcast us. Terry Wogan introduced us.

Live from the Albert Hall. That changed everything.

A couple of events happened.

We were involved in a Fleetwood Mac tribute album.

We picked the song Dreams. We were huge fans of Rumours.

We asked Mick Fleetwood, the drummer, if he'd be interested in playing with us.

We'd only rehearsed it at sound check.

All I can remember is that I was petrified.

I'd never done anything like this before.

We also had to get it in sync

and that's hard for drummers who'd never played together.

On the night, it just worked out.

It was fantastic. It just gelled and it worked.

One, two, three, four!

It was our first really big show in London and it was nerve-racking

and very, very exciting.

My way to get over those nerves

is to just really, really concentrate and think of the songs

and every word in the song and the person that's within the song

so that I can try and forget the nerves

just in case they take me over, you know.

People got a real chance to see us perform,

which is the part of us that actually, I think,

represents us fully because it shows our versatility.

If you just listen to one of the songs on Top Of The Pops,

you just see a very small part of us.

When we play live, you see the whole thing

and the range of music we're interested in and are involved in.

I mostly remember, afterwards,

everybody being really very excited about it and it was great.

I just kind of had to go off and be alone because I had no clue how it went at all.

I remember just sitting off in the backroom of the Albert Hall afterwards

when it was being broadcast live on the TV and kind of going,

"It's OK, it's actually OK."

Thank you all for coming out. It's been a great St Patrick's Day.

The Albert Hall opened up things for us.

From there on in, the album went from strength to strength.

This dream that we'd been dreaming of for years was suddenly coming to fruition.

From literally nobody knowing a thing to all of a sudden being very, very noticed.

We were very fresh. What we were praying was really fresh.

That mixture of the Irish, the pop, the rock.

I think then people really started to see us.

The record had gone from seven to 53 in the charts.

The week after that broadcast, it was at number 13, then went in the top ten.

Then stayed there for the year, then went to number one ten times.

Then we had four top ten singles and it was non-stop.

Please put your hands together for Mick Fleetwood!

Let's hear it for this fantastic band!

Playing with passion!

After the Albert Halt, everything just went kind of crazy. We were constantly touring.

I suppose that's the thing as soon as something takes off,

you've got to go out there and reap the benefits.

Especially when you've been working for it and you've wanted it.

The success of the concert led to the re-release of Talk on Corners,

featuring a remix of Dreams by DJ Todd Terry.

It just stood out and sparked an interest and that really grabbed the public's attention

because it was that different and yet recognizable.

When we recorded Dreams, it was a Jot different than what it became.

Todd Terry did a mix for us, which fumed out to be fantastic.

We all thought at the time that this could be a great single for us.

Before that, we hadn't heard our music being played.

Maybe the odd radio station here and there, but never to that extent.

Radio 1 were playing it and playing it.

It obviously was watched by a lot of people. Everybody bought the record.

People really liked Talk on Corners.

They got curious and started buying the first album, which was Forgiven, Not Forgotten.

We were actually in the States doing promo.

I remember being in a hate! in Detroit,

getting the news that we were number one

and number two with Forgiven, Not Forgotten.

That was incredible, but strange because people think

you feel like you're on top of the wand,

but we were doing lots of promo in the States.

And it wasn't exactly catching fire

so we weren't feeling the euphoria

we probably should've been feeling.

It was the time we walked into the room and it was, Wow! That was different.

We were used to walking into the room and, Who's that?"

So it was our high time, really.

Wonderful feeling to see it coming together and working to that extent.

But I think that was honestly beyond our expectations to achieve that.

There was Dreams, What Can I Do, So Young and Runaway.

And Runaway would've been a number one.

It was strong enough, except there was this young lady from LA with curls,

jumping around in a gymslip singing.

Britney Spears' debut record had come out and it just blasted us.

We had four top ten hits off that record.

To be the number one album of the year is based on pure record sales.

The amount you sell.

We sold so many records.

Everybody had that album. That's pretty much the way it was.

It was success upon success.

From being a struggle to make, I do love that album.

I think it's great, but we had our own struggles within it,

as every band does in every album.

It really turned out good.

The number one selling record in the UK in '98 was Talk on Corners.

To have you at the top of that list with an album is the most amazing feeling.

When we got success in Ireland and Australia, we hadn't been there.

We were in somewhere like Detroit

doing an in-store signing for two people, having Spinal Tap moments

in obscure places round the world.

Meanwhile, there's a country absolutely loving you.

No sooner has the elation subsided from the dramatic success we had,

we're thinking, �How do we better this?"

Lansdowne Road was the biggest stadium you could play in Ireland.

Denis Desmond, who had been with us from the beginning here in Ireland said,

"I think you're ready for Lansdowne Road."

It was decided to do it and the first time I realized how serious it was,

I was in Donnybrook at the traffic lights

and a bus came out of the depot, then another.

Three of them came past and they had "Corrs at Lansdowne Road" on the side.

We're doing this, there's no way out now. It says it on the buses.

I live in that area. I can hear the concerts and the excitement of the people going in.

I can smell the hotdogs, I've been the person going to the concert.

This was our night. It was incredible.

I remember hearing... I think REM played the night before us.

I could actually hear them playing and it made me more and more nervous,

listening to those guys playing.

Cos they were, like, REM and we were, like, The Corrs and it was just...

Just quite... really exciting, a little daunting.

We're thinking, "Are we ready to do this'? We're coming home. It's all our Irish fans."

In those situations, you just want to give the best concert you can possibly give.

I remember sitting at the side of the stage and watching the piece fill up with people.

The nerves were building for all of us.

It was daunting, the fact that we sold out something like 40, 45,000 tickets,

feeling, "My God, we have arrived. It doesn't get better than this, you know."

What on earth am I doing here?

Just going on was like you're a gladiator being thrown to lions. It felt a bit like that.

I've seen the footage of John holding onto me, bringing me on.

I feel like, "How could you do that?", but the lions were very welcoming.

Then you get to the essence of The Corrs how bloody good they are.

How really good they are.

On the day of the show, I remember the curtains puking back

and seeing the sheer size of the audience.

That was frightening. That was, "Oh, God!"

I remember, that gig, I was almost a little too nervous to appreciate it.

I remember feeling... The only way I could describe it was like I was in a phone box.

Just isolated. It was almost like I wasn't at the gig, yet I was performing the gig.

It was just, I think, the nerves got me a little bit too much.

They don't normally, but they did on that occasion.

The support that we had from the crowd, from the huge crowd there, was palpable.

There was such a good atmosphere in the audience.

One of those limes when you play and you go...

You reach a moment... It's very fortunate and very rare that you do it.

That feeling where, all of a sudden, you feel like

you're playing at home, only to those that love you so you can't do anything wrong.

If you fell, they'd love you anyway.

It's like you're playing to your parents and you're a kid, if you get that feeling.

That was there in Lansdowne Road. It was good.

You are so fantastic.

It was quite incredible and pretty overpowering.

It was a real nice end of a chapter to come home

and play in Ireland and feel from the audience

what we've achieved over the years, it was a great feeling.

The Corrs became the second Irish band in history to play a stadium in Ireland.

U2 were the first

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Good night. Thanks very much.

In direct contrast to the vastness of Lansdowne Road,

timings were scaled right down for the next album, Unplugged.

MTV Unplugged would be one of my favorite albums

because I think it got the truth in the songs

and the musicality within them and also the drama.

They're like mini-dramas when it has an orchestra.

So I love it, I love that album.

Doing the MTV Unplugged was a wonderful experience.

To go back and perform the songs organically

in a very raw way with just an orchestra

is very, very challenging.

It was really special to do, you know,

with just that intimate little audience and then being filmed.

You are completely live, the audio's live.

It's a tough gig to do and get it right.

There was a few limes we messed up and we just started again.

You do it as best you can.

You won't get it perfect, but you want to do your absolute best on the day

so it was tough going.

We did a couple of songs that we loved and wanted to do.

The REM, Everybody Hurts. And Old Town. Just love the song.

The Phil Lynott song, I just think it is so musical and uplifting

and yet heartbreaking, all those things that you love in the best of songs.

It was quite funny because Fiachra Trench, who orchestrated it, actually did that whole...

He had made that up in the original.

It was during the making of In Blue that Jean Corr became seriously ill.

It became apparent that Mum was pretty ill

when we were doing our In Blue record, which was our third record.

I remember being in the studio at the time, but we didn't realize quite how ill she was.

We thought Mum was going over to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital

to be assessed and then, within a week, Mum had died.

Trying to deal with that and trying to make sense of that was very difficult.

I'm fortunate to have faith

that, you know, she is in a better place.

Mum was our biggest fan

and always wanted us to be together

playing music

so, for her, it would not have been an option to stop.

Yeah, I believe she's there within our music, you know.

Mum would've wanted us to carry on, which we did.

It had been suggested that we co-write and we work with other people

to try and get that "hit song"

'cos we still, at that point, hadn't had a number one single.

In Blue, we basically started writing it in Dublin

and we'd demo things and produce them up to a certain level.

We didn't have a producer for a long time.

There's a reason why the best albums

have generally got a great producer along with them, you know.

It's very, very hard to have such objectivity on your own thing.

Eventually we got Mitchell Froom in to work with us.

Mitchell we'd worked with on MTV Unplugged and we loved his vibe.

He's very, very... He's very musical and he's very about spontaneity.

He is, like, "I love it" on the one-take vocal.

I'll often feel that I focused best the first time I sang something.

Often it's when you're most focused and you get it dead right.

You know, just in the whole feeling of it.

We did three songs with Mutt Lange and one of the songs was Breathless.

Mutt Lange is just an amazing guy to work with.

Breathless was great. I think we all knew it'd be pretty strong.

But it's always got to do with the climate of the music industry at the time

and whether it's the sound of the time.

You can put out something amazing and it flops.

You go, "What happened there?"

But Breathless did everything for us.

Suddenly we're hearing it's getting massive radio play.

I remember going over to London to do all the radio shows possible

to try and make sure and secure a number one, our first number one.

We were doing Party in The Park and it was obviously chart day.

It was Sunday and we knew this was a possibility,

but we didn't know it as a reality.

We got up onstage and we played to a great crowd

and then, straight afterwards, we found out that we'd gone to number one.

That was the first single number one in the UK.

So it was a good comeback, very good, and we had a good celebration.

It was a couple of years of dreams absolutely coming true.

It was almost like a fantasy.

And I think, had you written the script, you wouldn't have written it

to come true as much as this because people wouldn't believe it.

Breathless got to number one in 18 countries.

That was huge. That was fantastic.

That certainly paid off; that collaboration.

In the summer of 2000, In Blue came out.

It had come out under one of the saddest circumstances you can imagine.

They had survived, they'd put it out.

And out she came and it went to number one in nearly 20 countries.

In 2001, they recorded a DVD of their concert at Wembley Arena.

The Corrs had come of age.

They've now become a bona fide arena act throughout Europe.

Lots of acts become arena acts in the UK, not in Europe.

The music appeals from 15 to 50, the age group. H's not just one genre.

They're like a new Fleetwood Mac.

They appeal to the same kind of audience. People who like good music played well.

This was a whole new ballgame.

The Corrs were truly on the map and they soon found

that fame puts you at the beck and ca}! of a wide variety of people.

I think that we've been relatively lucky

when it comes to paparazzi and newspapers.

I hate the criticism of our albums and I hate when it's a bad review for a gig

and stuff like that, that kind of stuff gets to me.

Cos I kind of feel like... you know, killing them

for saying something bad about something you worked so hard on

and something that is so honest.

But when it's stuff to do with,

"Andrea's new boyfriend, close friends, fingers crossed"

and you don't know the person...

That kind of stuff is silly. That doesn't matter.

That kind of keeps me safe, as well, 'cos they write the lies

so sometimes the truth they think are lies, as well.

As I always say, nothing scares managers as much as boyfriends. Except husbands!

If I kept waiting to get married, we would never have gotten married.

There'd never be a space. There's always something The Corrs can be doing.

"Could you wait just one more year?"

She'd say, "OK, OK, but that's it, Johnny." "Fine."

Then I'd say, "Could you wait another year?"

So I said to John, "I'm getting married in July

"and I need a least a month off beforehand in preparation."

I think I had about... maybe a maximum of a week and a half off beforehand

and we got married.

It was very traditional and yet classic. It was a very beautiful wedding.

It was just great fun and a really, really fun, magical day.

Every picture of the wedding of me, I'm crying.

I couldn't stop crying the whole day long.

All the photographs that she has on the wall,

you just see, like, me in any of them, in the background or anywhere, I'm...

But it was beautiful.

I knew Sharon and Gavin would marry. It was only a case of when.

You begin to think, �The first one has gone.

'What direction is the band gonna go in?"

Those thoughts obviously have to come into your mind.

I do remember the record company were sod of,

"Is this the end because Sharon's getting married?"

And I was just going, "Oh, my God,

"they have absolutely no idea how much I love this."

Sharon had sort of left the gate open and the rot had set in

so now the rest figured...

Well, I suppose he proposed.

The manager's defenseless.

You just gotta to keep gracious. �I'm very happy for you both."

We decided to marry pretty fast. We didn't want a long engagement.

We'd known each other for a long time at that stage

so we got married three months later.

I would've made them be together if they hadn't wanted to be. They're perfect.

We had been travelling so extensively and working so intensively

that I think all of us needed a period of time when we get our own lives back.

Jim realized a long-held ambition. He learned to fly a helicopter.

I was with Caroline one night and we were having a good night.

We'd had a good few drinks.

At a certain point, I was getting slightly despondent about acting

and thinking that, as our parents watched us become a band,

maybe I'll watch my children act, you know.

And Caroline was, "Tut tut tut, that's a disgrace.

"You have to do flats.� And I said, "OK. No, you're right.�

So the next day, hangover and all, I went to Johnny.

I said, "I have to do this. We have to make time that I get to do this."

Through the Hubbards, a script,

The Boys 81 Girl From County Clare, was sent to me.

I really liked it and wanted to do it and so I auditioned for it

and a few days later, I heard that I got it.

I was surprised when I got pregnant, but I was really, really happy about it.

Of course, you're thinking about the band,

how this will work with the band, how you'll do your work schedule.

So there was a bit of concern, yeah.

She was pregnant.

As I said, if there's one thing a manager gets scary about, it's husbands,

but if he really gets paranoid, it's children!

I think everybody kind of needed time out, you know.

Andrea was doing a movie, Jim was learning how to fly helicopters.

I think everybody needed space and needed time for themselves.

That was really important for us.

And so began �The New Carts�.

We hadn't had a record out for four years.

In a pop world, that can seem like it's over, they're well gone.

They'd made their money, got married, they've having children.

Surely, you know, they're going to just enjoy it.

Which part?

The recording and writing of Borrowed Heaven spanned a year at least.

If not longer.

This break away from it and doing other things you wanted to do,

I suppose it revitalized the love of music and I found myself going naturally to the piano.

Without any idea of a clock ticking or must-do,

but doing something for absolutely the pleasure of it.

So it would be like, you'd write a song and get excited,

then ring up and go, "Johnny, book the studio."

In June 2003, we began Borrowed Heaven.

They spent about a year in and out of the studio getting it together.

"Coming in early on the verse.

She lived like she knew

Can I just come up in my own a little? It's not affecting theirs, is it?

She lived like she knew

Andrea wrote that song, wrote the lyrics of the song. That was about our mum.

It was an attempt by Andrea to try and make sense of her passing away.

OK, we go again. Can I have a little bit of Anto?

Mercy, mercy!

I can't... Thank you very much!

We collaborated with a producer, Olle Romo. It was the first time working with him.

It worked out very, very well. It was partly recorded in Dublin, partly in Los Angeles.

It can be Oole, Olla, Ol� and it just drives us all crazy.

Olla, Oola. It's kind of like apple in Irish.

Olle. Olle Romo. Now I don't even know if I've got it right.

It was good making the video for Summer Sunshine. We hadn't made one in a while.

The idea being that it's a frame packed with heads.

A frame full of heads. A frame full of you.

We worked with Kevin Godley on it, which was great. He's a little darker:

Fur Summer Sunshine, a tot of treatments were inst...

There was just an emptiness a lot of the time.

It's great, actually. It's just interesting... than other videos we've done, I think.

You know, it's actually doing some action stuff and we're not just performing.

It is behind the door...

It's not over here!

Kevin got the darkness within it.

He got what it kind of meant, as well as being optimistic.

We were asked to do an award show called the Meteor Awards.

The perception was, "Oh, they're back." A sort of comeback.

Were people nervous? Absolutely.

First time playing the song, you're aware of people going, 'Wow, what's this?"

Been dusting off the cobwebs.

It's more than two years since we played, but we're really...

In May 2004, Borrowed Heaven was released.

When we released Borrowed Heaven,

it was at a time when the record industry was in a state of absolute turmoil.

We didn't realize how big the changes would be on a global level

in terms of our record company.

We always kept relations with... not just the heads of the company,

but the people that were going to the shops and selling you and going to the radios.

It was like a decapitation, I suppose.

Suddenly, all the heads of the company that we had known

and grown to like and have a good business relationship with were not there anymore.

You kind of wondered, if you release an album now,

will these people want to work it if they're not stable in their jobs?

But it went straight in at number two.

You might say, 'What about number one?"

Number 50 was closer to where we might've come in.

If you're gonna be out of the market for four years in a pop world

and come back in at number two, that's nearly a miracle.

Basically, what we're trying to do is have the band promote this record, rehearse it.

John Hughes was planning the Borrowed Heaven tour

scheduled for the second half of 2004.

Then Caroline announced she had plans of her own.

I think John was the last person I called.

"We have a world tour penciled in, we're doing a show...

and you're pregnant. Right."

I was really happy when I found nut I was pregnant with my second child,

but it did concern me, you know.

We had so much work to do.

It says "Promo in Bangkok, 18, 19 and 20."

And I can't do that many days.

We had a promotional tour of Europe. We had a tour of gigs in Europe.

We had America. There was also talk of Japan and Australia.

Yeah, that slightly concerned me.

We had always thought about changing the line-up.

So Jason Duffy, who is Keith Duffy our bass player's brother, he came in.

Kieran Kiely, who plays accordion, keyboard, he came in as a second

and just augmented the sound.

Then Caroline got pregnant.

Jason became the drummer, she became the percussionist.

Which was good for her. She could play piano, which she does,

she could sing, then go back as percussion.

They rehearsed for the Borrowed Heaven tour at Bray Studios

with a full lighting and sound set-up.

Tell me if it's too much.

As opposed to individually.

When you've got that going on, the whistle and the thing, there's a lack of...

Just feels a bit empty.

OK.

The extra musicians have added so much. Ifs making on stage, it really is.

It feels so powerful and yet dynamic and spontaneous.

Jason will do something on drums and it will completely propel you forward.

It's like everybody has this domino effect and it goes off each other.

It's really good on stage.

Please say Jim isn't in the pilot's seat.

To be on the mad again was very exciting,

but also a little bit frightening because of the all-consuming nature of touring.

You're going, "I'll lose my life again."

We embarked on a European tour, which was mainly summer festivals.

It's a Spinal Tap day. I don't know where we are, what we're doing.

I'm not going to America when the guys go in August.

I'll be sitting at home getting bigger!

So what if you put it to there?

Like instead of...

- Oh, that's what it was, right. - It's...

- That makes a lot more sense. - It's easier to grab onto it, isn't it?

This is just a prototype. This is the only one in existence.

If it burns down and explodes, we're lost, mate.

- Corrs logo! It's a prototype. - Necks good.

Cool. It works.

For the US tour, we missed Caroline very much.

That was weird, that was very strange, especially the bow at the end

for it just to be three, it's like...

After that, we took a bit of a break

and we came back to Europe to do a more comprehensive tour of the individual cities.

Caroline, Caroline!

Where's Dad? Gerry?

Do you know where Dad is?

Caroline, Caroline, Caroline!

' WOW!

- Oh, my... - Where's Dad?

I'm sure that you've noticed that Caroline is not here tonight.

Which way, Ciaran, do you think?

Well, today is very, very special. Caroline had a baby girl.

Let us... Let's celebrate this little girl's life.

Most nights, we've been getting on stage and saying,

'We are sure that you will miss Caroline."

"She is not with us tonight." She had a baby girl six weeks ago.

But tonight is very, very special because Caroline is here.

Thank you.

It is great to be back on tour.

I've been so excited about coming back for the last few weeks now I've had the baby.

So...

So it's great, but now I'm gonna go back where I belong.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Geneva, and good night!

Thank you. Good night.

Thank you.

The last gig was in the tiny ski resort of Ischgl in Austria

where it had become a tradition to invite top bands to open tire ski season.

Is this the farewell tour?

Might be our last. I don't know.

All good things have to come to an end

and it could possibly be the right time to get out.

It was really Carolina's idea for us to do a traditional album and the old Irish songs.

We didn't play traditional music as kids.

As we got older, we started to play it, then incorporate it into our music.

We've decided to cal! the album Home because it is like a homecoming for us.

Back to our roots in terms of music

because this album is a collection of songs we grew up listening to.

Our parents were performing these when we were younger.

It's an album of Irish songs. There are two that aren't, but they sound like they are.

It's all covers so the challenge for us was to put our own stamp on these numbers.

Some of them not well known, but most of them are.

I'm excited about this new record and, regardless of how it does,

I think it's a really beautiful record.

It was a great experience to do it.

OK?

All of these songs were recorded live, the six of us in a room.

We took the best take and overdubbed on top of the songs if it was necessary.

The BBC live Concert Orchestra was overdubbed on top of that tater

so it's as close to live as you can get.

I like what we're doing at the moment and I like where we're at.

A Rot of comfort can he taken from the amount of success wave had.

A lot of comfort taken from the amount of work we've done.

Lagan Love is really special

because I think, you know, because it's the Lagan and it's Belfast.

It's Northern Ireland and there's something about the track that...

Because there's sort of like a marching rhythm on the drums,

it sort of managed to capture

a little of the feeling of the Troubles in the North of Ireland and also the hope

of, you know, getting through that and finding peace.

I'm really happy with the whole album.

I love Lagan Love. I think it's an amazing song.

Head Like A Wheel is very special.

I love Black Is The Color �cos of the darkness of it.

Sorry, I'll go through the whole album now! I like this album.

I kind of can? believe us, in a way.

I can't believe our naivety...

and... what was ahead of us.

And, I suppose, our intensity on it.

I kind of look at it like... an absolutely crazy family.

You can? help but be perceived as being nice when you're in a family band.

That perception is always going to be there.

Of course, we're completely mad at times.

Over the years, we've had these, you know, horrific arguments.

We're basically just a bunch of musicians,

but this family thing adds this slight...

nauseating thing to it!

It's really uncool, in a way.

But I don't really give a damn, to be honest.

When people came to see a show of ours,

they don't go, "God, aren't they beautiful?"

They go, "That was a great gig and they are good musicians,"

and that's what we wanted.

If you hadn't heard our music,

you wouldn't know we were a family so it wouldn't matter.

We write and record music and we travel the world doing that.

I suppose, we've a deep loyalty to each other.

That'll never go away. We're family. You can't get away from that.

But it is a world that is... The music industry is all about cool.

And we just seem to go through that without either being it or not being it,

which I think is nice because I think it's better not to be in fashion

because then you risk the chance of going out of fashion.

I feel proud of what we've done and I suppose I feel...

we could've done something else and failed miserably at it.

I hope, in the future, that we continue to do what we're doing...

and still be enjoying it.

I would most definitely do it all again.

I wouldn't be able to do it all again physically, but I'd be there in spirit.

I wouldn't change a thing about it,

but I think that, if we had realized the amount of work that it'd take

and the amount of travelling we'd have to do to achieve the success,

we might have thought twice about it, but I wouldn't change anything.

It has been fantastic, it really has.