Boy George is up for a fight with anyone: hecklers, the police, his old band, Elton John.

Next time you litter, think of the poor '80s idols forced to pick it up.

Genre DJ/Dance, Disco/Retro
Location Forum Theatre
Address Bent St (Opp. Hordern Pavilion),, Moore Park
Date 4 March 2007
Tickets $55/$49
Phone Bookings (02) 9383 4333

Boy George knows how to take hecklers like a man. When he landed in Sydney for Mardi Gras a decade ago, a bloke yelled out: "Keep away from our children."

"I walked up to him and I don't think he realised quite how big I am," says the 180cm-tall George on the eve of his return to Australia to spin discs at this year's Mardi Gras party. "I said, 'Do you want to say that again?' And he didn't."

George laughs, something he does quite a bit in the interview.

"I'm not apologetic about it and I find that kind of thing offensive. But most people are really cool."

The 45-year-old one-time gender-bending front man for the wildly popular '80s pop band Culture Club still wears a little make-up, but these days an elaborate Star of David and lotus-flower tattoo adorn the back and top of his balding head.

George has never been a poster boy for cool restraint. Anti-gay hecklers at a press call for the Vodafone Music Awards in London last year incurred the Boy's wrath. He shouted they were "chavs" (bogans) and "I know I'm a queer. Shut your mouth 'til I knock you out!", strutting up to them and smashing a champagne glass against the wall, with a frantic PR operative chasing after him, urging him to come away.

Then there were his celebrity payouts on last year's doco The Madness of Boy George, which documented George's five days of community service last year picking up garbage in New York after his arrest for cocaine possession.

Madonna, he offered, was a "vile, hideous, horrible human being". Robbie Williams "could use my help; the last album was terrible". Elton John appealed to "common or garden homosexuals". He's feuding with Little Britain's Matt Lucas and David Walliams, too, for reasons not quite clear, but which appear to date to Lucas's appearance in George's life-story musical Taboo, a favourite on London's West End but a flop in the US.

Kylie Minogue, however, fares better in our interview. George designed some clothes for her current tour and he's writing songs for her.

"In the last few months I've got a lot more friendly with her and she's adorable. I have to say I've been converted. One of my favourite Australians after Dame Edna."

George insists he's not the curmudgeon of media lore.

"Everything you say these days is taken literally. You become a sound bite. People have this idea of Boy George now, particularly the media: that I'm tragic, f---ed up. I'm all those things but I'm also lots of other things. Yes, I've had my dark periods but that isn't all I am."


George averages two DJ gigs a week and mixes dance and electronica albums. He still writes material and has been recording a new album. In December, he released the duet Time Machine with singer-songwriter Amanda Ghost, who co-wrote James Blunt's You're Beautiful.

Time Machine has only been released as a digital track rather than a CD release because George reckons he won't get airplay on British radio. His last top-i40 hit on both sides of the Atlantic was 1992's The Crying Game. Fair to say he'd love another hit?

"No," he says, laughing. "I mean, I deserve it. Do I think I'm talented? Yeah, I think I'm very talented.

"In England, what pisses me off the most about my country, I've always paid my taxes and yet I get no radio play. I think I should go to the tax man and say, 'You know what, give me some of my f---in' money back.' At the height of my career I ploughed millions of pounds into the UK."

He suggests he could have moved to Ireland, a tax haven for performers. But, he insists, he believes in paying taxes and in the welfare state.

He loves the US but is back in England to stay. He waxes lyrical about YouTube and MySpace as a way to disseminate his music.

George intends to write in the future about his arrest for cocaine possession in New York in 2005. He confusedly called the police to report an intruder that was never found. New York's finest were "vile, absolutely vile".

"In America, when people get into an authoritarian position, they become like robots ... Some of the things they did were quite shocking: a lot of emotional torture, fear tactics.

"I was put in these electronic handcuffs that clipped onto the back of the seat ... and they would pull tighter and tighter. They would say: 'Do you have a weak heart?' They terrorised me and they got away with what they thought they could."

Last year Culture Club re-formed and went back on the road. George wanted no part of it but the other three former band members went ahead, replacing him with newcomer Sam Butcher. George protested that Butcher couldn't sing and should not be allowed anywhere near his songs, many of which are paeans to lovers, including Culture Club drummer Jon Moss.

"If I'd gone out as Culture Club without them they would have probably taken me to court," he says. "If they want to [re-form the band] and they want to cheapen it, that's their problem. I don't wish them any harm. I just think it's a really bad idea.

"I did a couple of tours with them a few years ago and it was OK, but I don't make music purely to make money. For me it just stank of a money-making venture.

"When I saw Sam, I said, 'Well, he's a drag queen.' I kept reading these reports, 'It's not a karaoke Boy George,' and then I saw him and he was a bloody bloke in make-up!"

Is George seeing anyone romantically? Would he like to be hooked up?

"Yeah, a fair few people," he says, laughing yet again. "I'm not in a relationship but I'm not interested in getting married. Why would I want to be embraced by an organisation that's clearly homophobic? The church is homophobic! Fred Nile! He's been my nemesis!"

Boy George also plays the Mardi Gras Party at the Hordern Pavilion on March 3, 132 849, $130/$100.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/gig-reviews/boy-george/2007/02/01/1169919461203.html