IRELAND EASILY REPELS THE SOUTH

Playing her first English show in five years, the black-leathered Sinead O'Connor looked supremely confident as she followed {Van} Morrison on to the main stage. "I will live by my own policies," she sang on the opening "The Emperor's New Clothes," and then proved that she was going to carry on doing exactly that by kicking straight into "Famine," a Celtic rap which questions the basis of the 1845 Irish potato famine. Even when singing about historical subjects through a massive PA system in the middle of a huge field, O'Connor still manages to make her songs sound like personal cries from her heart. On "Thank You For Hearing Me" and "Red Football," she emoted rather than sang, but there was real strength behind her emotion. ...Perhaps O'Connor had a point when she told the crowd as she left the stage: "And don't forget -- if you do sing, sing an Irish song."