post and pics by kristen & brittany bartley
As I was ushered to my seat, I could tell a unique show lay ahead just by looking around at the diverse crowd Town Hall attracted Friday night for the final performance of Antony and the Johnsons‘ two-night homecoming gig. The show began with a lecture by Michael Cavadias as Claywoman, a 500 million year old woman who spends her days traveling through galaxies undiscovered by man. The performance it at times funny, thought provoking, and utterly depressing. Honestly, the half hour piece reminded me a lot of some of the encounters I’ve had with crazy homeless women in the wee hours of a NYC morning, and I had this strange sense of relief when it was over.
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Absolute silence fell over the crowd when Antony and the Johnsons took stage and opened up the evening with “Where is My Power.” The combination of Antony’s dramatically powerful and beautiful voice with the excellent musicianship of the Johnsons was hypnotizing. Each song continued to build into this quiet intensity as the stage lights gradually grew from almost complete darkness to a yellow glow. It was almost impossible not to become completely engrossed into the deep emotion of Antony’s words echoing off the walls, as in “For Today I Am a Boy.” The show‘s stillness seemed to reach a breaking point midway with the performance of “Shake That Devil.” The song started soft with simple strings and then broke out into a jazzy jam session of rumbling drums and horns over Antony’s howling pleads, not unlike the soundtrack to an exorcism. Soon after the audience was delighted with Antony’s version of Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love.”
The concert’s intensity was often broken up between songs when Antony would open up to his intimate audience and speak of how strange it was revisiting the rest of America with his newfound popularity including his former hometown of San Jose. He shared how on a recent interview there when asked what he loved about his hometown, he responded with “nothing much really, I actually hated it here.” At other times he awkwardly waved up to the balcony and blushed embarrassingly at a shout of “I love you” from deep within the crowd. It was in these moments that Antony was transformed from being this mysterious angelic creature to one like many of us in the crowd that night, transplants who came to this city in search of a different life or maybe an escape from an old one.
The night concluded with door prizes brought from Antony’s apartment, such as a Nina Simone book with a butterfly wing glued to the inside cover and a T-shirt from one of his old plays. The spectacular “Cripple and the Starfish” followed starting off the encore to a show that ended just as quiet and beautiful as it began.
One Comment
Yessss!!!