Antony and the Johnsons

Unusually, the show starts at the time it says on the ticket - 7.30, early for a London gig - and I have to clamber across people in the dark to find my seat just as Antony and the Johnsons join the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) on the Barbican stage. Tonight's show is billed as the "first full British date in three years". It's also airing the first crop of new material from the band in three years.

Since winning the Mercury Music Prize in 2005 with 'I Am a Bird Now', frontman Antony Hegarty has had to adjust to more widespread fame. The Prize rewards quality and not sales or quantity, but the sales and wider recognition always follow, and the ensuing exposure would have helped in selling out these two nights at the Barbican Hall, which has a capacity of just under 2000. Hegarty's notoriously uncomfortable with the limelight, despite being 6' 4" and distinctive looking, with long dark hair and tonight dressed in a full-length, gathered toga-like outfit over trousers.



The show begins gently with strings accompanying an atmospheric and fragile song called 'Mysteries of Love'. Hegarty is in shadow, we can only discern his outline and notice his leg twitching. During the course of the next few songs, the spotlights on him gradually brighten but overall the show is dimly lit. He performs songs from the debut album, 'Antony and the Johnsons', as well as the prize-winning 'I Am a Bird Now', and some new songs from the forthcoming album, 'The Crying Light' and from the EP, 'Another World', which has recently been released as a prelude to this.

The delicate songs of identity, gender, love, death and confusion, lend themselves to orchestral arrangements, with Hegarty's distinctive voice, slightly warbly but angelic and beautiful, soaring above the orchestration. His hands draw the eye as they don't stop moving throughout, fluttering about and expressing the words. Arrayed behind him, there looks to be at least 60 players in the LSO with cellos, violins and violas galore, a glockenspiel, percussion, brass section including a tuba, a huge harp and a piano.

'For Today I Am a Boy' is perhaps his most recognised song and is greeted very warmly. The next song 'I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy' is haunting and tender, with an uncomfortably long gap after the first verse when Hegarty and the orchestra stop completely and the audience is reverentially still. Some dramatic percussion from the orchestra drives 'Kiss My Name', and 'Rapture', which finishes with lines from the Lord's Prayer, is glorious. 'Another World' has a protracted orchestral introduction and the disturbing, eerie strings carry on throughout.

Hegarty introduces a cover song with "this one's on the house". Beyoncé's 'Crazy in Love ' is unrecognisable to start with but draws laughter and applause as he sings "got me looking so crazy right now'. The main set finishes with a melancholy and dark song which was co-written with his brother 'Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground'.

The encore is 'River of Sorrow'. Hegarty, who has hardly spoken a word throughout the show, explains at length the story behind this last song which is about a kind-hearted New York street prostitute, Marsha P Johnson, who Antony and the Johnsons were named after. She drowned in the Hudson River in 1992 and Hegarty wrote the song as a tribute to her.

The hour and 25 minutes long performance was beautiful and polished but seemed to lack an indiscernible something - maybe because there was hardly any banter, or perhaps because he didn't play my personal favourite, 'Hope There's Someone'. On the way out, I overhear someone describe the concert as self-indulgent, and that might explain what's missing – the audience weren't asked for full involvement but just to be appreciative spectators.

FUTURE GIGS

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