Boy George & Culture Club
Boy George has long had cause to sing the blues (even if most of the dues he’s paid were clearly bills long overdue), although the era of his emergence resulted in a heavily synthesized and BPM-programmed variety of the blues peculiar to the era that spawned his best known musical project, Culture Club. The dance club icon born George Alan O’Dowd has revived the Culture Club moniker for a new album, Tribes, and a support tour due to hit SDSU’s Open Air Theatre on September 25.
Also appearing is Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins, who has kept a low profile since the Twins split in the early ‘90s. He did turn up with one fellow Twin in a band called Babble, as well as recording a series of solo electronica albums as International Observer that few seem to have connected with his former musical endeavors. Around four years ago, he began performing solo concerts where he played Thompson Twins songs for the first time in years. He’s apparently been working on a new solo album since the days of Obama’s first presidential run that he’s finally preparing to release, preceded all the way back in 2016 by a single and video for “Come So Far.”