HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOY GEORGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

November 14, 1984
IT was only two years ago that the English pop group Culture
Club first appeared on these shores, posing as a kind of musical rainbow coalition.
Led by the charismatic fashion iconoclast Boy George, Culture Club presented an engagingly eccentric image of unity in diversity.
The concept was underscored by catchy pop songs that fused West Indian rhythms with Motown-inspired song forms.
Since then, of course, Boy George has become a household word, and Culture Club one of the top-10 selling pop groups in the United States.
All too predictably, the group's iconoclastic Bohemian image has been polished with a high-gloss Las Vegas slickness.
At the Byrne Meadowlands Arena on Monday, the group members, with the exception of Boy George,
wore the kind of glittery sequined outfits one would expect to see in a Broadway production number.
And Boy George, who used to be a fascinatingly enigmatic dresser, flounced about the stage in dazzlingly glamorous costumes.
The most spectacular was an Oriental-styled robe of white silk topped by a gaudy multicolored headdress.

Boy George, who often likes to chat with his audiences, was in an uncharacteristically taciturn mood.
'I used to be cool, but I gave it up - let's have a shriek!'he proposed to the very subdued crowd.
After being answered with only mild enthusiam, the performer said little more for the rest of the concert.

The group performed all of its hits, in rough rollicking arrangements heavily punctuated by drums.
Since Boy George was hoarse, and quite obviously exhausted from the current tour, the performances were far from definitive.
Among several numbers from Culture Club's new album, ''Waking Up With the House on Fire,''
easily the standout was a Philadelphia soul-styled ballad called ''Mistake No. 3.''