Culture Club - Live At The Royal Albert Hall 2002 (20 Year Anniversary) (2013)

Live at the Royal Albert Hall finds Culture Club celebrating its 20th anniversary with an infectious and expansive grandeur, all while basking in the love of adoring fans. The show actually starts with a great joke on the audience: Boy George, looking not a day over 20, glides onstage in his once-trademark derby and beaded hair extensions, delivering a warm and welcome vocal on "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" The startled crowd soon realizes he's an impersonator. The real, fortysomething George O'Dowd, looking a lot less androgynous and a tad thicker than in New Romantics days, smiles self-deprecatingly and launches into a pleasing set of white soul ("Cold Shoulder," "Miss Me Blind"), stark gospel ("That's the Way"), stirring raga-rock ("Bow Down Mister"), and even a classic (a lovely cover of Bowie's "Starman," complete with audience participation and muscular guitar by Roy Hay). A fine show all around. -- Tom Keogh