2002-11-10 • 0h 0min
Live at the Royal Albert Hall finds Culture Club celebrating their 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 realises he's an impersonator. The real, fortysomething George O'Dowd, looking a lot less androgynous and a tad thicker than in his New Romantic 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). It's a fine show all around.

Cyndi Lauper: 12 Deadly Cyns... and Then Some

Four Jacks

Halalabad Blues

Red Rebirth

The Last Love of Laura Adler

The House of Lost Souls

Seann Walsh: Is Dead, Happy Now?

Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen

Attenborough's Journey

Three Ladies and me

Art for Everybody

Tammy's Always Dying

The Pleasure Garden

Ties

The Amusements of Private Life

The Fugitive Futurist