CAPSULE REVIEW : Odd Setting Ends Exile of Boy George

The annual benefit concert for the Latino community’s Hollenbeck Youth Center on Wednesday at the Wilshire Theatre concluded with Englishman Boy George singing a new song he wrote in India, backed by members of a Los Angeles Hare Krishna temple.

Thus did Boy George officially, if somewhat strangely, end an exile that began with a series of drug arrests in London four years ago.

His first American concert since his old band Culture Club’s last swing in 1985 wasn’t part of a high-profile tour behind a new album. Instead, it was an isolated appearance in which he was backed mostly by taped instrumental tracks, closing a program of amateur singers and dancers, several comedians, a string of celebrity hosts, veteran rock group Tierra, singer-actress Maria Conchita Alonso and a Filipino version of New Kids on the Block.

An odd setting for a man who dominated the pop world during Culture Club’s heyday in the early ‘80s with his hit records and his flamboyant, androgynous image. The singer’s management says that he made the trip solely to support the Hollenbeck Center, whose efforts to turn youths’ lives around are much appreciated by the singer, after going through his own rehabilitation. At the same time, a strategy-minded observer might venture, it provided an opportunity to get his feet wet in front of an American audience in a relatively low-pressure situation.

Wearing a metallic tunic, black hat and vest, George took advantage of the small-theater setting to establish an intimacy and to sing with more ease and expression than he could on Culture Club’s big-hall, big-deal tours. He lost momentum when he turned the stage over to Kinky, an Englishwoman who records for his More Protein record label. She offered some rapid-fire, Jamaican-style rapping and berated the audience for not standing up.

When George returned, he provided the spontaneity that the show needed by introducing Culture Club’s keyboardist Roy Hay, who backed him on a sublimely sung rendition of the ballad “Victims.”

Finally playful and at ease, and singing with the unforced, dusky naturalism that was his trademark, the Karma Chameleon seemed to have crossed a threshold, and it gave the folksy, hippie hymn that capped the performance a genuine radiance.