Culture Club
3Arena
★★★☆☆
On December 5th, 2008, Boy George lost a high-profile court battle and was convicted in a London courtroom. Eventually, he bounced back and became one of the most unlikely national treasures of recent times. George Alan O’Dowd is now returning to the band that made him famous in the first place, as Culture Club reunite to launch a tour by the Dublin docks and perform their first two albums in full, Kissing To Be Clever from 1982, and its successor from the following year, Colour By Numbers.
This growing trend for albums getting played live in their entirety is a curious phenomenon. With the advent of the digitalisation of music, some doomsayers dramatically declared the album to be dead. Paradoxically, the 21st century has prompted a parade of artists to play their best-loved record from start to finish. Even U2 got in on the act and did The Joshua Tree in Croke Park in 2017. The practice is now firmly embedded on the live circuit, helping feed an insatiable modern appetite for nostalgia, especially for the 1980s and 1990s.
As show entrances go, it is as good as it gets. A wall of video screens shudders into life accompanied by the unmistakable voice of Margaret Thatcher scolding: “You turn if you want to.” A distorted montage of footage features a snippet of a Boy George interview, which is greeted by wild applause. As Thatcher’s infamous “This lady’s not for turning” quote booms across the room, George emerges from a red phone box and starts singing White Boy, the opening track of Kissing to Be Clever.
“Tonight will be like lifting the needle and putting on the record,” George says after this opening salvo. He is flanked by lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing vocalist Roy Hay and bassist Mikey Craig, the only two original members joining him for this festive lap of nostalgia, but three backing singers and a brass section beef things up considerably.
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The performance and musicianship is highly impressive, but the set list flags in performing both albums in such a linear fashion. The thrill of not knowing what track is coming next is sorely absent. If it wasn’t for Boy George’s quips, this would be little more than a fancy playback.
Fortunately, he is in typically sparkling form. “There should be a mosh pit at Culture Club gigs,” George announces to a seated auditorium. “I’m going to get a few lyrics wrong, but I’ve seen David Bowie forget songs and I know his stuff better than my own.” At one stage, he greets the crowd’s applause with a pithy, “It’s all your fault,” and his trademark cackle. There are plenty of shout outs to his late mother’s extended Dublin family, and some moments of sheer, unadulterated joy.
Predictably, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me sends them wild. It’s an admittedly fine version, but it is closely followed by the opening track of Colour By Numbers, Karma Chameleon. In slavishly following the running order of the original albums, the show peaks far too early.
Lacklustre choices for encores, including a B-side, an unreleased out-take, and a souped up cover version of Get it On by T-Rex, end the night on a flat note. Upon realising the hits are well and truly over, many head towards the exits.
When touring their 1991 landmark album, Screamadelica, Primal Scream changed the track sequence and rearranged large swathes of the source material. If an artist doesn’t bring something new to the table, they risk making their audience wonder why they’ve bothered coming out. Culture Club do enough to put on an entertaining evening, but it is far from an unmissable one.
