'80s concert news

Boy George and Culture Club bring good karma to Dallas with summer show

Any self-respecting '80s New Wave/New Romantic/pop fan would no doubt possess a mixtape — or at least a Spotify playlist — featuring Boy George and Culture Club, Berlin, and Howard Jones. Now, Dallas fans of all three can ditch the Maxell cassettes and experience the real thing, as all three acts head to town on a new tour.

Flamboyant '80s pop/fashion/culture icon Boy George and his act Culture Club will hit Dos Equis Pavilion on August 10 as part of "The Letting It Go Show," a 25-city summer U.S. tour featuring the three Big '80s acts. The tour also will hit Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands on August 11 and Austin's Germania Insurance Amphitheater on August 12.

Tickets for the Live Nation-produced show will be available starting with a Citi presale beginning on Wednesday, April 19. Expect more presales throughout the week ahead of the general onsale, which starts at 10 am Friday, April 21 at livenation.com.

As for the show, fans can expect Culture Club's singalong faves such as "Karma Chameleon," "Church of the Poisoned Mind," and the reggae-inspired song that started it all, "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me.” Boasting seven straight Top 10 hits in the U.S. and UK, Culture Club became a pop powerhouse through the early and mid-'80s, before pausing and eventually disbanding.

A lightning rod for identity politics and a style maverick who often donned androgynous and even head-scratching looks, Boy George (née George Alan O'Dowd) made a grandiose return in 1992 with his haunting, ethereal cover of Dave Berry's "The Crying Game," which became the title song for the Oscar-nominated film of the same name. His resurgence led to his autobiography, Take It Like a Man, which was published in 1995. Devotees rejoiced when the Culture Club trio reunited in 1998, issuing the two-disc set VH1 Storytellers/Greatest Hits. (The current Culture Club lineup features George with bandmates Roy Hay and Mikey Craig.)

A favorite of '80s dance clubs long before they hit the mainstream, electronic dance/New Wave act Berlin shocked and rocked with its single "Sex (I'm A...)," which sparked bans and outrage with its (then) outrageous lyrics and lead singer Teri Nunn's sultry, breathy stylings. Chart toppers "No More Words" and the clubby "The Metro" followed, but the band struck solid gold with its lush ballad "Take My Breath Away," the unforgettable love scene track in Tom Cruise's Top Gun. Herself also an '80s icon, Nunn is seemingly ageless and was recently ranked No. 11 on VH1.com’s “100 Greatest Women in Rock.”

Photo courtesy of Culture Club

Boy George and Culture Club headline "The Letting It Go Show" tour.

With more than 10 million albums sold worldwide, Howard Jones has transitioned from '80s and '90s pop act to current relevance thanks to his poppy, hummable hits being used in screen hits like Stranger Things, Breaking Bad, The Watchmen, and more. Bursting on the scene as a hot new British act with "New Song," Jones (or HoJo as fans know him) followed with anthemic hits like "Everlasting Love," "What is Love," and "Life in One Day." Cherished for those smash singles and the slow singalong "No One is to Blame," he returned in the '90s with feel-good single "Lift Me Up."

Here is the full schedule of "The Letting It Go" tour dates:

Thu Jul 13 – West Palm Beach, FL – iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre

Sat Jul 15 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre

Sun Jul 16 – Jacksonville, FL – Daily's Place Amphitheatre

Tue Jul 18 – Atlanta, GA – Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park

Wed Jul 19 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion

Thu Jul 20 – Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheater

Sat Jul 22 – Bethel, NY – Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Sun Jul 23 – Wantagh, NY – Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater

Tue Jul 25 – Mansfield, MA – Xfinity Center

Wed Jul 26 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center

Fri Jul 28 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live

Sat Jul 29 – Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake Amphitheater

Sun Jul 30 – Philadelphia, PA – TD Pavilion at the Mann

Tue Aug 01 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage

Thu Aug 03 – Tinley Park, IL – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre

Fri Aug 04 – Clarkston, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre

Sat Aug 05 – Cincinnati, OH – Riverbend Music Center

Tue Aug 08 – Kansas City, MO – Starlight Theatre

Thu Aug 10 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion

Fri Aug 11 – The Woodlands, TX – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Sat Aug 12 – Austin, TX – Germania Insurance Amphitheater

Mon Aug 14 – Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP

Fri Aug 18 – Phoenix, AZ – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre

Sat Aug 19 – San Diego, CA – North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre

Sun Aug 20 – Concord, CA – Concord Pavilion

concerts

Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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