BETHLEHEM, Pa. — An iconic 1980s band whose three platinum albums and six Top 10 songs in just three years helped define pop music in the decade will return to Wind Creek Event Center in Bethlehem, it has been announced.
Also returning will be one of the most renowned jazz singers today, it was announced.
Tickets, at $49.50-$199.50 for Culture Club and $49.50-$129.50, are on sale at the event center website and at the Wind Creek box office at 77 Wind Creek Blvd., Bethlehem.Wind Creek Event Center
Culture Club, the British band that topped the charts in 1983 with its song “Karma Chameleon” and gender-bending front man Boy George, will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28.
And Diana Krall, the only singer to have eight albums debut at the top of the Billboard Jazz Albums chart, will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13.
Tickets, at $49.50-$199.50 for Culture Club and $49.50-$129.50, are on sale at the event center website and at the Wind Creek box office at 77 Wind Creek Blvd., Bethlehem.
MTV favorite
Culture Club’s multi-racial lineup, musical style mix and brightly colored clothing styles helped set trends that lasted throughout the 1980s.
Its heavy reliance on the visual component of the band also made it a favorite of the emerging music video and MTV.
Its sophomore album, 1983’s “Colour by Numbers,” was its most successful, selling four-times platinum, hitting No. 2 on the charts and producing the No. 1 gold hit “Karma Chameleon."Billboard chart records
It first hit the charts in 1982 with the chart-topping song “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” from its debut album “Kissing to Be Clever.” The album went platinum and also produced the Top 10 hits “Time (Clock of the Heart)” and “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya.”
Its sophomore album, 1983’s “Colour by Numbers,” was its most successful, selling four-times platinum, hitting No. 2 on the charts and producing the No. 1 gold hit “Karma Chameleon,” as well as the Top 10 songs “Church of the Poison Mind” and “Miss Me Blind.”
The group won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1984.
Its third album, 1984’s “Waking Up with the House on Fire,” also went platinum, with the Top 20 hit “The War Song.”
That was its last Top 30 album and song, though it did release another disc, 1986’s “From Luxury to Heartache,” before breaking up that year.
The band reunited from 1998-2003, and released a 1999 reunion album, “Don’t Mind If I Do” that failed to chart in the United States.
The group again reunited in 2011, and has remained together since. Its most recent album, 2018’s “Life,” was its first in 22 years.
Culture Club also played Wind Creek in 2022. It also headlined Bethlehem’s Musikfest in 2015.
Second-biggest jazz artist of '00s
Krall last played at the event center in 2024.
This will be her third show in the Lehigh Valley in the past 29 years. She also appeared at the event center, then called Sands Bethlehem Event Center, in 2012, and performed at Lehigh University in 1996.
She was scheduled to play Easton’s State Theatre in 2018, but canceled due to illness.
Krall has sold more than 6 million albums in the United States and won three Grammy Awards.Recording Industry Association of America
Krall has sold more than 6 million albums in the United States and won three Grammy Awards.
Her most recent album, her 15th studio disc, was 2020’s “This Dream of You.” It peaked at No. 2 on Billboard’s Jazz Albums chart.
In 2009, Billboard magazine ranked Krall as the second-biggest jazz artist of the decade.
That year, she released her Grammy-winning album “Quiet Nights.”
