Apart from a brief flirtation with the Independent in the early 1990s, the same newspaper has been gracing my breakfast table since student days. So it was something of a surreal experience to see my own name staring back at me this morning, from Page 4 of the Guardian's weekly Film and Music supplement. And also a matter of some pride that - for once! - a deserving Nottingham act should be receiving recognition in a national newspaper.

(Yes, yes, we claim Late of the Pier as one of our own, but technically they're from Castle Donington, over the border in leafy Leicestershire.)

You can read my article here. And if it whets your appetite, you can buy the album from here or here (where it has shot up by over 15,000 places in the sales rankings since the start of the week, leading me to draw some unexpected conclusions on the enduring power of the press).

A few weeks before his recent court case, a cheerful and upbeat Boy George spoke to me about his return to the gigging circuit, his most recent single, and his forthcoming headline slot on the next Here and Now tour.

Insofar as any Boy George interview can be called "standard" (as before, he was articulate, witty, waspish, and utterly charming), it was all fairly standard stuff – but in the light of subsequent events, some of George’s observations do feel especially poignant.

What follows are the edited highlights of our conversation, which took place in early November.

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You’ve just finished a fairly massive tour of the UK – your second in twelve months. Are you enjoying your return to the live stage?

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve done it. At the moment, it’s really enjoyable. A lot of people seem to be going out more to gigs. I know I am, and I think there’s been a bit more of an interest in it. My audience is really across the board, from 80-year old women to kids, and it’s great to go out and really get to see them. I love that.

It must have been great to sing your latest single [the Barack Obama-sampling Yes We Can] during the build-up to the US presidential election.

It’s funny, but when I talked about Barack Obama on stage, people were really weird. Like, quite hostile. I don’t know whether it’s because people aren’t into politics, or because my fans are secretly Tories…! (Laughs)

Maybe they assumed it was a straightforward “Vote for Obama” campaigning song, which would have been a bit weird. But when you look at the verses, it’s saying something quite different. There’s one line which goes “Please forgive me for these crimes against myself” - and then there’s a real sting in the next line, when you sing “And I’ll forgive your lack of faith”.

It was interesting doing that on tour, because the hostile audience made it a bit more defiant. So I was actually really enjoying singing it. But when [Obama] was elected, we saw a kind of great goodwill. And when I first heard him talk a long time ago, that’s what I saw: optimism, and a fresh look at things, which is what I think people want.

It’s a total sea change. It reminds me of 1997, when Tony Blair stormed into power and everyone seemed incredibly optimistic.

But I think he’s even more eloquent than Tony Blair. And he’s got much more charisma. The only thing that comes across as a little bit nauseating is all that stuff about America being the greatest country in the world. It’s not, you know. They throw people out of ambulances who can’t afford them! (Laughs)

Have you ever been approached for any political endorsements?

Well, I’m not really the sort of person they would ask! (Laughs) Maybe in the future, but I’ve had so much negative press that I’d probably be the last person that they’d ask!

You’ve spent a lot of time in the USA, but you seem to be concentrating back on this country now. Has the love affair with America soured?

I think Great Britain is the best place to live. I love it here. I could never live anywhere else. America is a place you should visit, but it’s not somewhere you’d live.

You’ll be headlining the next Here and Now tour in May. Is this another sign of your increased confidence in touring?

Well, we kind of started this whole thing, because about 12 years ago Culture Club did a tour with the Human League and Howard Jones. So it’s something that we’ve done already. It’s kind of an easy gig, because everyone’s doing their hits, and everyone’s just on for a certain amount of time. So it’s not like doing a normal tour. It’s fun, you know?

How well do you know the other acts on the bill?

I know Kim Wilde pretty well, and I know Hazel O’Connor because she was a Hare Krishna. A lot of them are people that I’ve bumped into, if you know what I mean. But what’s nice about these kinds of tours is that you get to work with these people when you’re older and more settled. When you’re nineteen or twenty, you think everything’s a competition. But we all make assumptions, and when you meet people they’re nothing like you think they’re going to be.

Looking back on that first flush of 1980s pop, do you think that Band Aid and Live Aid killed the party off, or was it in its death throes already?

I think it came to a natural end. Although now you can see that people are trying to recreate it. Like the Tings Tings: that record [That’s Not My Name] is basically Money by the Flying Lizards [a Top Five hit from 1979]. Somebody should do a little cut-up of those two, because it’s the same record. You can literally sing the same thing. “That’s what I want!” “That’s not my name!”

What I find perplexing is that we seem to be in the throes of yet another Sixties revival. Amy Winehouse came and did her stuff, and then we had the Duffys of this world, and now we’ve got Girls Aloud and the Sugababes doing Sixties pastiches.

I think the only one who gets away with it is Amy, because she lives it. I’ve recently been listening a lot to Frank, her first album. She really uses her voice on that album, and it’s amazing. I remember buying it and liking it, but now I really love it.

Of all those people, she stands out. No offence to any of those bands, but you know they’re just trying to have hits. What’s trendy, what’s the flavour – let’s do that. With Amy, it just feels very natural. You don’t think she’s doing a pastiche. There’s a marked difference.

You’ve got a DJ-ing date coming up in Dubai, and I’m curious to know more about the place.

I love Dubai; I go there a lot.

Is it not all just a bit sanitised?

It’s very different there; you can’t do lots of the things that you can do here. You can’t kiss men in public. The last time I was there, somebody said that you’re not allowed to be gay. I said, it’s a bit late for that! (Laughs) You can’t drink in the DJ box, and so on. But people love music, and there’s a really great audience there.

So there are club kids there, who will connect with it all? It’s not just the children of the rich?

There was a big club that was shut down, where I used to play. I looked up at the balcony, and there were all these Arabs, dressed in all their gear! But that’s the great thing about dance music; it’s kind of universal. Because a lot of it is instrumental, the language barrier is not important. I first went to Dubai ten years ago, and I thought: oh, what’s it going to be like? And it was great, and every time I’ve been there I’ve always had good shows.

Just don’t ask the cocktail waiter for a Sex On The Beach. That’s off the menu.

Or a Slow Screw! (Laughs)

I sense that there’s been a real upswing this year for you. It feels like you’re in a particularly happy place right now.

I definitely am, and that’s a choice. It’s not that anything happened; it’s more my thinking. I’ve kind of accepted that I do what I do, and I love what I do, and I’ve spent a lot of time making things into a drama that didn’t need to be a drama.

And so I’ve reached the point where I realised I had choices: you can either make things great, or make them hard work. I try to do less of that now. I did a lot of that in the past, and I think it’s really unhealthy and disruptive.

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On December 5th 2008, George O’Dowd was found guilty of falsely imprisoning Audun Carlsen. Sentencing will take place on Jan 16th, and imprisonment has not been ruled out.

In a statement on his official website, Boy George says: “I am feeling surprisingly objective and sane. No matter the outcome, I will get through it and move on with the wisdom I have gained from the experience. This past year has been magical in so many ways and I intend to keep it that way.”

The 2009 Here and Now tour comes to Nottingham's Trent FM Arena on Saturday May 16th. Kim Wilde, Howard Jones, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Altered Images, Hazel O’Connor and Brother Beyond will all be performing. At the time of going to press, Boy George was still scheduled as the headline act.

Labels: celebs, eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

He’s still only in his teens, but R&B’s latest and hottest superstar has already come a long way since making his UK chart debut, almost exactly three years ago. And on the second night of his first ever overseas stadium tour, this small town boy made good couldn’t afford to be complacent as he faced the challenge of building a live reputation here from scratch.

On the evidence of last night’s hugely entertaining show, he won’t have much to worry about. Deafening pyrotechnic bangs and equally ear-shredding squeals greeted his entrance – strapped to a wire cable, and slowly descending head-first towards the stage.

As the opening song Wall To Wall got underway, and the ten-strong dance troupe began to strut their stuff, it became clear that this would be more of a visual spectacle than a conventional concert. Apart from the drummer and the DJ, all of the music was pre-recorded – including all of the backing vocals, and even some of Brown’s lead vocals (although in fairness, his lip-synching was kept to a tolerable minimum). If a song contained a guest vocal, such as Lil’ Wayne’s rap on Gimme That or Jordin Sparks’ verses on No Air, then the vocal was simply played from tape.

If Chris had been any less of a performer, we could have been looking at an embarrassing flop. Thankfully, he possessed enough charisma and energy to carry the show virtually single-handedly.

Just as the corny audience participation stunts threatened to take over, Chris brought on his secret weapon. To gasps of astonished delight, his girlfriend Rihanna casually strolled onto to the stage, dressed in a simple top and jeans, singing the opening lines to Umbrella. The couple performed it as a duet, with Chris adding some new lines and even his own chorus: “You can be my Cinderella, ella, ella…”

Rihanna stayed around just long enough to treat us to a full vocal version of Live Your Life, before wandering back into the wings with a smile and a wave – leaving Chris to face his newly jealous female fanbase. “I apologise for bringing a lady on stage”, he simpered. “You know I love you.”

The surprises didn’t stop there. A few minutes later, Brown and two of his male dancers re-appeared at the back of the main floor, hidden under a tarpaulin. This was whipped away to reveal a flimsy disc-shaped performing area, which was then winched halfway up to the roof, as fireworks fizzed beneath it. Ropes were used to tilt the disc at varying angles, allowing Chris to mime a couple of sexy “slow jams” directly to the back rows of the venue, or back out towards the main arena. And if this wasn’t quite enough excitement, he ripped his vest off for good measure, hurling it into the clawing throng below.

From then on, it was a straightforward home sprint to the end. Having changed into some fetching beige leisure wear, Chris belted out a sequence of his biggest hits: Run It, With You, No Air and Kiss Kiss. His biggest hit Forever was saved for the encore, its live vocals filtered to produce the required machine-like effect.

This may not have been one of the most musically authentic shows that the Arena has ever seen, but it was certainly one of its more entertaining displays of crowd-pleasing showmanship.

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic