WE ARE YOUR FEK

I’m normally pretty “anti-” as far as doing anything at a concert with an iPhone that doesn’t involve keeping it in your pocket. But last night, at the Antony & The Johnsons show at Radio City Music Hall, this was a moment I had to steal, and for the record, it does feel a little bit like theft. Mostly, more than anything else, because there’s no way this will ever do justice to the experience of actually being there. The venue’s incredible. The acoustics there are amazing. If you’re ever in New York and looking for something neat to do, just go inside Radio City Music Hall, walk up to the front row, and look out. It’s something else.

Last night’s thing was a MoMA-presented one-night-only production—sets, lighting, a 40-piece orchestra playing compositions of Antony’s songs written by Nico Mulhy—the whole thing. Not that you didn’t know you were in for something different walking in, but there’s Bjork and Matthew Barney standing in the same rainy line as you to serve as a helpful reminder. The set was beautiful. The lighting was kind of beyond.

There was a little too much to get into here without doing it justice, suffice to say it’s one of the better shows I’ve ever seen. But, here’s this, one of the best moments of the night, something that arrived as a really odd moment of levity and over the course of five or so minutes formed this…brutally raw swell of emotion. 

Antony Hegarty, performing a cover of “Crazy In Love” at Radio City Music Hall with a 40-piece orchestra.