BERLIN

Love Berlin! Terri and co always put on a great show! You can tell that she completely loves performing, and it was great to see them in such a small club!

Excellent performance. Lots of energy, played their hits, and surprised w a standout cover of The Cult’s She Sells Sanctuary.

Incredible show! Terri walked off stage and went waaaay out into the audience. The band rocked.

Berlin and Terri Nunn were amazing. I just wish they were the headline act and would have played longer.

BOY GEORGE WAS OK BUT WOULD HAVE PREFERRED TO HEAR SONGS IN THEIR ORIGINAL SPEED AND STYLE

Culture Club / Howard Jones / BERLIN: 7/19/23 “It was a hot summer night in Charlotte and New Wave Was on the menu, the kind of weather that’d melt your 80’s vinyl and your cassette tapes as well for that matter. Aside from the Police and Cars by the time New Wave took over the airwaves I was still steeped deep in arena rock and roll. Although I missed a lot of the scene there was plenty of airplay and videos available to perk my interest leaving me slightly above novice status. The Letting It Go Show’ featuring Culture Club, Howard Jones, and BERLIN kicked off July 13 in West Palm Beach and is scheduled to wrap up on Aug 20 Concord CA. The North Carolina date (the fifth of the tour) was sandwiched in the middle of a 3 night in a row run (Atlanta/Charlotte/Nashville). Live Nation’s $25 ‘All In’ afforded me reserved seats in the rear between the covered portion pavilion and the lawn just behind the concourse. Culture Club still features the original three from the beginning in London 1981: Boy George, Roy Hay (guitar), and Mickey Craig (bass). Sitting in on drums was touring member Anne Evanson, after Jon Moss left in 2021 procuring a £1.75 million settlement with George and the band. The band comes into town with 6 studio albums yielding 50 million sales and 10 charted singles in the U.S., not to mention George’s solo releases. With a promise from the prompter ‘The prolific band will be performing all the hits’ the nearly all 80’s era crowd was ready to get it on, but first things first. At 7 p.m. 1978 formed L.A. new waver’s BERLIN took the stage for a 35 minute/ 7 song set beginning with ‘Masquerade’ a somewhat obscure single which cracked the top 100 in 1982. Skipping over their five albums from the 2000’s save one song they drew nearly all material from the 1980’s. Lead woman Terri Nunn 62 not just looks the part, she IS a rock star —never missing a beat. With an outgoing personality and strong vocals she won over the crowd quickly. The second song in their set was ’No More Words’ which made it’s way to #23 back in 1984. It’s original video clips were projected on the side screens. ‘Charlotte we are excited to be here and we’re especially excited because our guitar player is from Charlotte South Carolina, Mr. Carlton Boost.’ His family was present in the audience, ‘You must be very proud of your hometown boy!’ ‘Animal’ which was released in 2013 as a comeback hit but failed to chart was inserted mid-set and introduced accordingly: ’Some of you have known BERLIN since we were all in our twenties. We wrote a lot about dating in our twenties, this song is about what dating feels like to me know.’ After a powerful performance of the bands only #1 ‘Take My Breath Away’ from ’86’s ‘Top Gun’ were band intros. In addition to Carlton the hometown boy, there were John Crawford the founder of the band on bass since 1977, Dave Diamond on guitar since 1983, ‘and on drums since last Tuesday’ Ric Rocc. Terri disembarked from stage to sing a cover of The Cults ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ walking and working the crowd with ne’er a missing word. It turned out to be the crowd favorite. With one more song her time had run out and Terri exclaimed, ‘If someone dragged you here tonight and you have no idea who we are, thank you so much!’ Next in order was synth-pop wizard Howard Jones from Southhampton UK who surprisingly has the largest portfolio of music of the three artists: 15 studio albums with 12 charted singles in the U.S.. A brief turn time had the stage ready for him which featured no drum kit. Eight tall lights resembling florescent ceiling bulbs stood erect on the stage along with three keyboards and all was set. Both BERLIN and Jones performed a front a black curtain which stayed in place concealing Culture Clubs’s equipment until it was their time to go on. I took the intermission time to upgrade myself to a mid-spot under the pavilion which was fairly easy to do. The noticeably light attended mid week crowd had left the covered areas in the corners open as folk gathered towards the front and center. Taking my cue as security left a pavilion entrance open for a moment I made my move! At 7:54 p.m. John Howard Jones 68 took the stage for a 55 minute / 9 song set batting all of his major hits out of the field starting off with 1984’s ‘Like To Get To Know You Well’. ‘We are having such a great time, it’s not fair to have such a great time. Would you like to sing along to all my songs? (audience cheers) In that case we’d a like to get to know you well!’ Jones set was all 80’s, all hits, including ‘Everlasting Love’, ‘New Song’, ’No One Is To Blame’, and ‘What Is Love’, a song that climbed the closest to top for him peaking at #2 in the UK. Wearing a multicolored jacket with ‘HoJo’ written on the back, bright white pants with pink and orange sneakers, the in command conductor of a four person band put on (in my opinion) the strongest performance of the evening. A highlight of the evening was when Jones introduced his bass player Nick Beggs formerly of Kajagoogoo. Playing a 10 string custom modified Chapman Stick and wearing a sleeveless skirt style kilt all in black with long flowing blond hair it turns out he was the writer of the #1 ’Too Shy’ and we got to hear it performed LIVE. Jones informing us that the band ‘never actually made it to America to play that song live, and so this is a bit of a special moment to hear this song in the U.S.A.’! Nick killed it wowing the audience with a throbbing slap bass solo. The #5 ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ rounded out the set with the evening’s rendition ever increasing in volume and tempo until it turned into an all out dance remix. Picking up the florescent lights as props HoJo wielding them like light sabres. With a quick intro of the other three band members he walked off the stage, his set complete. 9:15 rolled around and it was time for the headliner to take the stage. The lights went down and the curtain fell as George Alan O'Dowd 62 stood a top an 8 stair riser separating the drum and percussion kits. Strutting downward step by step while the crew removed the curtain he opened with the new and unreleased ‘Next Thing Will Be Amazing’. It was the first of five new songs included, the majority of them positioned mid-set. Performing 15 songs Culture Club performed without a break (save a brief word to the crowd) for an hour and a half, the early and later portions of the set housed all the hits. The second and third songs in respectively were their #13 ‘It’s A Miracle’ and the #9 ‘I'll Tumble 4 Ya’. A reggae-fied cover of Bread’s ‘’Everything I Own’ followed which was actually recorded by the Club back in 2002 and briefly charted. George dressed all in long clothing with a black sport coat with large yellow dots and a large yellow bowler top hat had to be dying in the Southern heat. ‘Either it’s a little cooler here or I’ve just declimatized, you know because as you can see I’m very overdressed for this climate. Heat is the enemy of fashion and must be defied.’ Although the performance was great and George’s voice strong, the pitch seemed a step or two lower than the radio versions. The music also lacked the brilliancy I fondly remember with somewhat muffled bass and percussion taking the forefront. Standing out in the nine person band were the background vocalists. It’s no surprise as Culture Club has always been strong in that area even so far as hiring Clare Torry (of Floyd’s ‘Great Gig’) in the studio. Tonight featured ‘The Voice’ finalist Vangelis Polydorou and Roxy Yarnold who I can not overstate were both amazing. The theme of the tour was all about letting it go whatever the ‘it’ is as George stated ’as you get older and a bit smarter you realize “choose your battles”, let some things go, most things can be let go.’ George used the theme as a platform to share his new material and to not always live in the past (i.e. 80’s music). But alas, the hits were what we came to hear and they started to surface once again the later half of the performance with the #2 ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me’, #10 ‘Church Of The Poison Mind’ (performed in a medley with Wham’s ‘I’m Your Man’), #2 ‘Time’, and #5 ‘Miss Me Blind’! A three song encore rounded out the set with a duo of covers ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ and ‘Get It On (Bang A Gong)’ with the Clubs sole chart-topper the #1 ‘Karma Chameleon’ inserted between the two. Winding out the evening were full band intros. Bottom line when all was said and done, if you grew up in the eighties or loved the eighties you did not leave the amphitheater grounds disappointed!” Review and photo by DAve (Concerts #798-800)

Such a good concert! I was very impressed. We were disappointed that we missed them in Orlando, FL a few months back, so happy they joined the Culture Club tour. Honestly, I went to see Berlin, and I was not disappointed at all. Terri Nunn did a whole song walking around the amphitheater, it was amazing!

They/she sounded great! Glad to see the metro live after hearing alkaline trio and SOAD cover it when I was younger.

Solid Gold performance

Berlin was phenomenal! Terri Nunn made the crowd feel like part of the family at a fabulous and not-so-traditional holiday celebration. Every beyond-talented member of Berlin shined and gave everything to the audience. They gifted us with all our favorites and a perfect curation of holiday songs, including an impromptu closing of Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song.” The band covering AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” was an epic surprise that I will never forget! As always, The Guild Theatre was the perfect cozy venue to host such a special, never-to-be forgotten, musical feast!

Great energy, voice still strong, lots of crowd interaction - such good fun in a club venue!

Berlin was absolutely amazing!! I highly recommend everyone seeing them.

Terri is 80's Pop Royalty. Berlin was good. Glad to have opportunity to see them!

it was a awesome show in a small venue

Great time!

Awesome!!

Great show. Terri Nunn was amazing.