[ TBA:08 ] ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS

Last night the stage was dark as a singular voice emerged slowly into the lightness of air, ringing through the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, otherwise softened in opulence. Here taking center stage was Antony standing lone in front of the massive curtain, himself morphed, save for his quavering instrument, donning a silvery toga. Backed by the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, and his band, the Johnsons, they performed for just under 90 minutes to a near sold out crowd at the opening festivities of PICA’s TBA Festival. Songs included I Fell in Love With A Dead Boy, Cripple and the Starfish, River of Sorrow, For Today I Am A Boy and many others, both new and from their short back catalogue of recordings. With little physical gesturing, save the elegant movement of his arms to the sky, Antony was as stoic as any opera diva who’s come before. Never becoming a pop spectacle they chose not to feature their most popular songs, in favor of short vignettes and an socio-pop defying version of Beyonce’s fluffy, hiphop lite breakout hit Crazy in Love which could have taken a ridiculous turn, but split the difference nicely. These are the torch songs of our time, here given proper treatment, reversing the cliched context with Antony’s operatic tongue-in-cheek emoting tremelo. The orchestra perfectly incited a sense of the deeper emotional inflections in the music which engaged the subtleties of his voice and the band’s original compositions. One bracing encore towards a solid standing ovation made for a rapt audience pondering every trill and lull in the textural orchestration and warm silences.

Tags: Antony and the Johnsons, Arlene Schnitzer, Oregon Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 10:56 am and is filed under Daily Grind. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.