The Corrs play Mandela birthday bash

The Corrs travel to South Africa this weekend, to play at a special celebration being held for Nelson Mandela's 85th birthday.

"It's quite an honour," John Hughes, the manager of the band said to hotpress.com. "We're really looking forward to it. As I understand it, we're the only international act who have been asked."

The first direct contact between the band and the former President of South Africa happened when he was in Ireland a couple of weeks ago, to receive an honorary doctorate at Galway University.

"We got a call to ask us would we go over to play," John Hughes recounts. "It was just to do a few numbers acoustically during the dinner. We were due to do three songs and after the second one, Nelson got up and I thought 'he's going to leave', that's grand or whatever. But he had a word with one of the other guys who was there and then when we started the third number, he got up and he stood in the centre of the floor and danced there, on his own, to the music. It was one of those surreal and wonderful moments that make it all worthwhile."

Despite that impromptu display of dancing prowess on the former President's part, the call to travel to South Africa still came out of the blue.

"Apparently they told him that they wanted to make the 85th birthday special for him," Hughes explains, "and asked him what he would like - and he said 'Can I have The Corrs play?' So they got onto me and they said 'you know the way we asked you to go to Galway - well, can we ask you to travel to South Africa?' I had told the band that they everything else was cancelled in order to allow them to get the album, which they're working on at the minute, finished but we had to make an exception for this. How could you turn down the honour of playing for him?

"He's an extraordinary man. He spent 27 years in jail and 17 years in solitary confinement - and after that he comes out and talks about forgiveness. He's a remarkable character and 85 is a big age - so it is a great thing to be asked to do. It may cause a slight delay in getting the album finished, but we can live with that!"

In what is sure to be music to the ears of executives at Warner Music, The Corrs are still on course for an autumn album release. hotpress.com will bring you further news as it emerges.