December feels like the perfect time for a touch of nostalgia and what better way is there to feel festive than to look back towards childhood, which is where we find ourselves this evening with a trio of 80’s artists at an extremely windswept M & S Bank Arena.
Headliners Culture Club are headlining arenas celebrating their first two albums, 1982’s Kissing To Be Clever and Colour By Numbers, which followed just a year later, by doing what lead singer Boy George is calling the “zero arguments tour'”, playing both records in the original exact order meaning that there’s no inter-band friction with regards to the set list.
But before all that, there’s a couple of other big names and first up it’s one of Sheffield’s finest, Heaven 17. Sadly for them they are on so early, taking the stage at 6:55, when most of the audience are still finishing their tea in the surrounding Albert Dock. ‘Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry’ warms up those who have made it in in time followed by “the first song we ever wrote together’,” the painfully still-relevant ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’.
The likes of ‘Come Live With Me’ and ‘Let Me Go’ deserve more than this time slot and they end with a massive version of their mega-hit ‘Temptation’ and their (somewhat stingy) allotted half hour has flown by.
Next up is the voice of Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley, who appears onstage every inch the crooner, with a cravat and all, so it’s quite the shock when he launches straight into early 80’s edgy synth classic, ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’. ‘Highly Strung’ and ‘Only When You Leave’ sees him getting to rock out and stretch his impeccable vocals over his band who don’t miss a note for his whole 40 minute set of Spandau singles.
He takes out a seat and a glass of Jack Daniels for an overly earnest ‘Through The Barricades’ before he ends with cabaret versions of songs he must have sung thousands of times, ‘True’ and ‘Gold’. An unexpected treat.
8:50 soon rolls around, and the now fuller arena is thrown into darkness before we are bombarded by on-stage screens filled with images and audio clips from the early 80’s as an old style red telephone box comes up through the floor at the top of a set of stairs from which Boy George emerges singing ‘White Boy’ and we’re straight into album number one.
It’s fair to say that Kissing To Be Clever is not a typical classic 80’s album, which is usually filled to the brim with singles. This means in the first third of their set there’s really only ‘I’ll Tumble 4 Ya’ that the crowd can get dancing to. And therein lies the folly of ‘the playing albums all the way through’ ethos, either people don’t realise that’s what you’re doing or just don’t listen to them pre- gig, leaving big chunks of stuff people are not familiar with.
By the time George is skanking along on ‘Love Twist’, the crowd seems flatter than that other great 80’s icon, Flat Stanley, with the backdrop screens doing some heavy lifting, as there’s not much going on stage up front. The other original members Mikey and Roy are on opposite sides of the stage with Boy George down the middle, and not much interaction between the three, with session musicians and singers further back. And due to the early 80’s basic production on the records, in parts it feels like he’s singing over a backing track rather than a full live band experience.
George is trying his best in between songs, telling stories from the olden days, but due to a lack of noise from the audience ends up mostly laughing at his own jokes. But just before the evening threatens to drown itself in polite applause, luckily we get the last debut album track and the first two of Colour By Numbers, so there’s a run of ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?’, ‘Karma Chameleon’ and the bouncy ‘It’s A Miracle’, which breathes life into proceedings, albeit either side of a mood-killing interlude, which however, does provide some interesting interview footage (it shows George’s mum appearing on Letterman) and a costume change.
‘That’s The Way’ sees him wax lyrical about that clip of his mum and become quite visibly upset, his timeless voice breaking up, adding an extra layer to an already emotional song, before ‘Church Of The Poison Mind’ and ‘Miss Me Blind’ pick up the pace again. But the crowd are still not really getting into it, with only a handful of people on their feet for the non-single tracks, and from my vantage point, there’s as many early walkouts than at an Everton home game.
But those who have already gone miss out on the undoubted highlight of the evening, a stunning version of ‘Victims’, which sees a now bejewelled Boy George back on the top of those stairs, sharing vocals on this goosebump-inducing single.
It’s fair to say that Culture Club are one of those bands who were massive but don’t have as many big singles as you remember them having, which makes you wonder if this is enough to headline an arena these days. However, tonight it is the format that lets them down rather than the material. Maybe a few arguments about the setlist would have been a small price to pay?
(Photo: Cheryl Doherty)
