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Culture Club Tours Again: Boy George Has Mixed Feelings About His Younger Self

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 04:02 PST, Jul 11, 2016

Culture Club, the 1980s New Wave pop band best known for bringing hits like “Karma Chameleon” and “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me,” opened up their new world tour by kicking things off in Australia. According to News Australia, the last time that Culture Club went to Australia was in July 1984, and it was solely due to people power.

Culture Club was arguably the biggest pop band on the planet back then, and Australian iconic personality Molly Meldrum brought them over to make an appearance at a Rundle Mall in lieu of a full concert.

Jumping forward to 2016, Culture Club has come back to Australia. They played live in Adelaide, once again thanks to people power, as this time around, it took a legion of fans who took to Twitter to all but hassle Boy George, Culture Club’s frontman. Needless to say, the efforts of his legions of Australian fans worked, and the Culture Club Adelaide Entertainment Center show was not only the first stop on their only full Australian tour in 16 years, but it was also the very first gig of their entire world tour.

The Culture Club tour is nothing like the usual retro tour that fans can expect these days with just a few of the original members in it but instead features all of the original members of Culture Club. They are joined by a few newcomers, bringing the stage presence up to 13 musicians, all performing together. The set list is a mix of nostalgia for long-time Culture Club fans and new songs for new Culture Club listeners. While Boy George may get the majority of the attention thanks to his iconic status, Culture Club will always show that musical chemistry that has made their hits so diverse and, even today, still so successful.

Being the iconic pop group that Culture Club is today, Boy George took some time to go back and take a glance at the past. According to the Herald Sun, Boy George dished on the original Culture Club fans and even rated his younger self.

The original set of Culture Club fans have grown up, and Boy George understands this. He knows that these people have moved on from being hysterical teen fans to self-anointed misfits to the androgynously dressed individuals of the 1980s, and they now have mortgages, jobs, and families to consider. In his opinion, these original fans still look to Culture Club as a way to relive that youth.

Boy George spoke about the diversity of the original Culture Club fans.

“The thing is with Culture Club, we always attracted everyone; there were outsiders and moms and kids and now even a few husbands who were the boyfriends dragged along years ago. Now they look happy to be there instead of the geezer who would never admit to being a Culture Club fan.”

He also went into retrospect over his career with Culture Club and spoke about how he has grown over the years. Mentioning that there are some songs that fall by the wayside and other songs that still have meaning today, Boy George revealed that, in particular, “Victims” and “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” still particularly resonate with him, and that in some ways, he finds them more emotional today than when he wrote them.

“When you are 19, you are writing about love and you have no idea. Fast forward to 54 and you have a very different perspective and that enables you to perform these songs with more depth and experience.”

Looking back on his early days in Culture Club, Boy George revealed that he had mixed feelings about how he looked and how he acted back them.

“In some ways, I bear no resemblance to [my younger self]. I watch interviews he did and think ‘What are you talking about?’ Oh my God, I was so insane. But I do look at some of the photos and think ‘You look quite good there’.”

[Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images]

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