Antony and the Johnsons at BAM

Last Friday I had the pleasure of accompanying my cousin to a show at BAM (The Brooklyn Academy of Music) for a performance of Antony and the Johnsons with the Brooklyn Phil Harmonic Orchestra. This performance was like none I had ever seen- in a good way! Antony and the Johnsons is a group led by singer/ pianist Antony Hegarty, who is an inter sex individual originally from West Sussex, England. The Johnsons are a string section that play background to Antony's eclectic, almost ethereal vocals. His voice has been compared to Aaron Nevile and Nina Simone, but it is difficult to compare him to anything. Antony has sung backup for Lou Reed's album Berlin, and has had fellow musicians Boy George and Rufus Wainright perform on his albums.

For Friday's performance, which was a slight hour and fifteen minutes long, the beautiful orchestra music behind Antony's unique mesmerizing vocals, were combined with lyrics that told sad stories of life as a person struggling with gender. For me the "classical" music paired with a theme which represented very modern struggle was fascinating. The surprise, and perhaps the highlight for many of the audience members including myself was a very interesting cover of "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce. Imagine a chamber-pop version of that song accompanied by a full classical orchestra! It was fantastic. Especially the lyric "got me hoping you'll page me right now". Genius. Anyway, I could attempt to explain this show for hours and never do it justice, so I've included some YouTube videos (not from Friday) below for your listening enjoyment.

This video, for the song "Mysteries of Love", appears to be a fan video, and doesn't actually show Antony and the Johnsons at all, but I think its a really beautiful song, so I wanted to share it.

This next video is a clip from 2005 when Antony and the Johnsons appeared on David Letterman performing "You are my Sister" to promote their album, I am a Bird Now, which earned them Britain's Mercury Music Prize for best album of 2005.