Boy George and Culture Club: Rainbow in the Dark, live review: a small Christmas miracle

“Tonight feels like a miracle,” declared Boy George onstage at SSE Wembley Arena. This was more than just an easy segue into the uptempo funk of It’s a Miracle - Culture Club really were lucky to be standing onstage. 2020 has seen gigs as we know them unviable, with artists forced to move online, but even that was easier said than done for these Eighties icons.

Originally, their Rainbow in the Dark livestream was set to take place in November, broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall, but a national lockdown scuppered that plan. Then it was set to be the first gig in seven months at SSE Wembley Arena with an actual audience (socially-distanced, of course), but with London moving into Tier 3, those 1,000 people had to make do with watching Culture Club from home, alongside a global audience.

Then the news came that London was set to go into Tier 4 in a matter of hours, but thankfully Boy George and Culture Club managed to slip past those new restrictions. If there was ever a time people needed their spirits lifting, it was this weekend.

Promising “the hits, all the hits and nothing but the hits” the London band opened the concert with a woozy, piano-lounge reworking of the seminal Karma Chameleon, that saw their 59 year-old frontman duet with 16-year-old singer Mila Branger. Beautiful but lacking the disco-oomph. Happily, they also closed the show with a more faithful, energetic performance of the track. “A Karma Chameleon Culture Club Sandwich,” according to George. No, you’re not getting a better play on words from me.

By their own admission, Culture Club don’t really do happy songs. “We write melancholy songs about complicated love, affairs and matters of the heart,” said George, but tonight they did their best to inspire some joy. “If you’re alone and you’re missing someone, just remember the arguments and you’ll forget it,” George said at one point while the introduction to the reggae infused Everything I Own came with the strict instructions to “groove on the sofa, grind in the kitchen and let yourself go.” With hits such as the slinking Move Away, the soulful Time (Clock of the Heart) and the glam excess of Church of the Poison Minds delivered with such enthusiasm, it was hard not to get lost in the moment.

Rather than a straightforward journey through nostalgia, Rainbow in the Dark saw the band embrace the new. Their other biggest hit, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, was delivered with a wry smile and a newly-empowered spirit, while the band also played two new songs during their 60-minute set. The eponymous Rainbow in the Dark was released a few weeks back and was inspired by George acknowledging how much his presence has helped people come to terms with their own identity. Elsewhere there was the trembling epic of We Are Gathered Here Today, which was written during lockdown. “Every breath I take feels like freedom,” George sang, the emotion in his voice easy to hear.

Right at the end of the show, the stream got cut off in the midst of what we assume was a moving declaration from George about what the night meant to him and his band.  As he said earlier, however: “Live music is brilliant because anything can happen. And it will.”