Boy George at Meltdown 2013

Boy George played at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of Yoko's Meltdown 2013 festival. His was the penultimate show with Yoko's 'Double Fantasy' show at the Royal Festival Hall closing the festival (just as she'd opened it ten days earlier with her Plastic Ono Band) in which he was also planning to sing (which explained the early start to the show).

I've seen George a few times over the past decade when he invariably wears his BeRude clothes, almost always a black suit with giant scarabs crawling over it or shiny skulls. It's nice to see he's moved on and great to see the new slimmed down George with his cheeky little beard and he looks much younger too. He's a great advert for a healthy lifestyle.

With a five-piece backing band and three backing singers, George strode on stage, the very picture of confidence, an artist who knows what he's doing and can do it with consummate ease. Instead of the greatest hits show I, and probably everyone else there, was expecting, he launched into a series of new songs, of three minute pop songs, and they sounded good. They're from his new album that will be released in, I think, November 2013 and what a great way to hear them first. The two that stick in the memory after a first listen are 'My God Is Bigger Than Your God' and 'Death of Samantha' (his cover of Yoko's song).

We did, of course, get some of the hits as well, including 'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me' and 'Karma Chameleon' (will he ever be allowed to stop playing those two?) along with 'Victims', 'Church of the Poisoned Mind', 'Everything I Own' and 'Satan's Butterfly Ball'. His voice was on top form and he moved about the stage with such ease, laughing and joking with the audience. It was a delight to see him happy and enjoying himself, telling us about the new album and a tour to be announced in the next day or so. I'm looking forward to both.

I don't know how George knows Yoko but it's great that she invited him to do Meltdown and it was lovely to see Yoko tweet him today commenting that he looks much younger and asks if he's in love? I smiled at that.