The Corrs conquer Madrid with their mix of pop rock and Celtic notes
But the rain eventually gave way and just after 10pm, Andrea, Sharon, Caroline and Jim came out on stage and the applause from the audience made it clear that thousands had been eagerly awaiting the return of the Irish band to Spanish shores.
The chords of 'Only When I Sleep' started to play... and the show began! Andrea's voice perhaps suggested that she had been performing for several weeks, but the singer still moved the crowd.
After the second song, Andrea approached the microphone and the next charm offensive was upon us: "Buenas noches Madrid, es un placer estar aquí", something we Spaniards appreciate very much: 'guiris' (foreign tourists) speaking the language of Cervantes. Back to Shakespeare's language, he commented that they love Spain and Madrid because his sister Sharon lives here.**
Their pop rock mixed with Celtic notes take us back to the early hits of the Irish with songs taken from their first albums 'Forgiven not Forgotten' and 'Talk on Corners' from the mid and late 90's (yes, I'm a sucker for nostalgia...).
The auditorium of the Tierno Galván park was packed to the rafters, and the audience was devoted and never tired of singing and applauding the songs of the Irish and the Corrs brothers, who ended up surrendering and thanking them for such affection.
The audience came from different parts of the world: Spaniards, Argentinians, Irish (even the brothers' fellow countrymen from Dundalk, the Corrs; birthplace).
Between the songs they played tracks like 'Summer Sunshine' included in 'Borrowed Heaven' from 2005 and 'White Light', included in the album of the same name from 2015. There was time for everything; their best known hits and two covers - 'Old Town' by Phil Lynott and 'Dreams' by Fleetwood Mac.
And of course there was no shortage of folkier, more traditional songs that took us back to their native Dundalk. Caroline sat on a flamenco box with her bodhrán, Sharon on the fiddle, Andrea with her Irish flute and Jim on the piano.
Andrea wasn't the only one who ventured into Spanish after the interval, as Sharon introduced 'All The Love In The World' in Spanish. After that they continued with 'Breathless' and the instrumental 'Toss the Feathers' to close the concert and their tour.
Sharon began a solo career in 2010 that has led her to release three albums. The latest of these, 'The Fool and The Scorpion', (2021) written shortly after her much publicised break-up, has been mired in controversy.
Indeed, the eldest of the sisters was married to Robert Gavin Bonnar, and during a holiday in Andorra the couple met Telma Ortiz, Queen Letizia's sister, with whom they hit it off and became friends.
Once the couple separated, Robert began an affair with Telma and they even had a child together, something that understandably didn't sit well with Andrea. On the album 'The Fool and The Scorpion' there is a song of the same name whose lyrics are widely assumed to be a her revenge track.
The verse reads: "You'll have your desserts, served cold in the grave of my tenderness. The arms she flew to, they'll sting you to death. I bet the bed was on fire and you came all day. But now your heart is wretched and your soul took a beating. The fool and the scorpion. The queen's twisted sister and the chameleon. I am free, I am free, I am reborn".
We don't know how these lyrics and this song have gone down with the new couple, but Sharon seems to have let out all her pent-up rage. The Queen is a great lover of music, but we have no way of knowing if she was in the crowd for the Irish band's return to Madrid.
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By Friday, each of the figures queueing up — all of whom were wearing orange astronaut/prison jumpsuits — had their own personal insults graffitied next to them, most of which are a little too NSFW to print. But beneath Netanyahu, Trump, Zuckerberg, and Bezos, someone had scrawled the words, 'Viva la revolution'. 'People seemed to love it,' Led By Donkeys reflects after the festival. Block9's political partnerships didn't stop there. 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Block9's long-time collaborators PrEPster, a London-based HIV prevention activist organisation — and so, as well as promoting HIV prevention drug PrEP on site, the group widened its remit this year. 'We provided information on sex and consent, rehydration, drugs harm reduction, and where to go if anyone needed support across the festival,' PrEPster co-founder Dr Will Nutland tells Cosmopolitan UK. 'We also had earplugs, period products, and sexual health info.' 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We always get the most stunning responses.' Whether you're ruminating on the evils of capitalism while admiring striking art installations, dancing with drag queens in the burning heat at Downlow, two-stepping to techno at Block9's brutalist Genosys stage, or worshipping at IICON until the sun comes up, Block9 has long embraced partying as an act of rebellion and resistance — which is what Glastonbury is really all about. 'The 90s rave culture was a potent organising force against the Tories back then,' concludes Led By Donkeys. 'And there are other examples over the years. Protest can be celebratory, joyful and affirming.' So, if you're lucky enough to score tickets for 2027, make sure you pay it a visit. Who knows what Block9 — and our increasingly dystopian world — will have in store for us then?
