Energetic Culture Club doesn’t skirt credibility

Geoff Carter

Friday, Oct. 20, 2000 | 10:29 a.m.

In its heyday, Culture Club fooled everyone. It was a genius piece of work. While nonfans wasted their time conjecturing about what kind of equipment Boy George had up his kilt, the band quietly and steadily wired America's suburbs for reggae, gospel and soul.

Parental groups demonized George for his wardrobe and became brutishly overprotective of kids who were in no more danger of cross-dressing than they were of spontaneously combusting. Meanwhile, the band filled those same kids' heads with Al Green, Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley.

As George looked out over a near-capacity crowd at the Hard Rock Joint on Thursday, he had every right to feel good; The crowd was there for the music, not the drag show. Mission accomplished.

"Someone put flowers on my mike stand," George said. "I feel like such a poof. That's a good thing, right?" The crowd roared approval: not a cross-dresser in sight.

"I've waited 18 years for this," a woman behind me said. "They're just amazing."

Indeed they were. The band members played a tuneful, energetic set that was positively ripe with hits, and breezed through them as if there hadn't been a set of breakups (personal and professional), Boy George's heroin addiction and a few commercial failures between 1983 and last week. "Church of the Poison Mind," "Karma Chameleon," "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" and "Miss Me Blind" had their own momentum, their own inner life; the band just grabbed on to them and rode them down.

Even the new tunes sounded great. "See Thru" could have slid into the band's mid-'80s live sets without confusing anyone. It's a charming throwback, more of the same where the same was needed. The band took pains to know its fans' tastes in the 1980s; It's good to know they're still listening to those screaming crowds, and pulling lessons from them.

They're a fascinating crew to watch, too -- an even mix of age, race and gender, just as the band's moniker would seem to imply. Culture Club reminded me of George Clinton's P-Funk All-Stars -- a seemingly mismatched group of people who hardly seem to belong in the same room together, to say nothing of the same band. Each player seems to be inhabiting his or her own sealed world; they're only playing the same song by divine accident.

It's a neat trick -- the last bit of misdirection Culture Club has up its sleeve. Look closely at that hem and you'll notice its hearts embroidered on it. The hearts have always been there. We were just too busy trying to look up the band's skirt.