Antony and the Johnsons, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London <br/> I Am Kloot, Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth

If you've never paused, even for a nanosecond, to look at the stick-figure signs on male and female toilet doors, and wondered "Which one is meant to represent me?" then, theoretically, Antony and the Johnsons shouldn't speak to you at all.

If you've never paused, even for a nanosecond, to look at the stick-figure signs on male and female toilet doors, and wondered "Which one is meant to represent me?" then, theoretically, Antony and the Johnsons shouldn't speak to you at all.

London-born, but California and New York-raised, the surnameless Antony sings lo-fi gospel-blues songs which are preoccupied with his discomfort within the male body in which he was born, and his wish to attain womanhood. This is, in any sense, hardly "everyman" stuff.

Then why is the Queen Elizabeth Hall filled with people of all genders and persuasions (yes, there are some suspiciously tall ladies, but also scores of perfectly "straight"-looking folks)? It's all in the voice. Something in the rich, quavering falsetto with which this man was blessed (he instinctively adds a warm "ooohhh" on the end of each line, the aural equivalent of an arm around the shoulder) is able to touch people who have no natural empathy with his chosen subject-matters.

As a result, Antony has a unique ability to lift the dry, dispassionate subjects of transsexualism and gender reassignment out of the clinical context of medical documentaries, or the hand-wringingly earnest prose of the agony aunts, and nail them deep into your heart.

When we hear Antony sing "One day I'll grow up and be a beautiful woman..." on "For Today I Am A Boy", we hear the same longing for liberation that we hear in "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free" by Nina Simone (to whom, of course, Antony is frequently and rightly compared), with her desire for racial freedom replaced by his wish that the gods had given him a different body at birth.

When the Johnsons troop out, there's the strangest void centre-stage: an arc of nothingness, formed in part by the sweep of the grand piano, and in part by a row of monitor wedges. When Antony appears, he doesn't fill it, but sits on a piano stool stage-right. We immediately realise why: the creature we were expecting - the creature he wishes to become - does not exist.

The beautiful blond pictured in Pierrot make-up inside the booklet of I Am A Bird Now is nowhere to be seen. Instead, many of us are confused to see a slightly tubby man with long greasy black locks, one ear sticking out, a Simpsons overbite and a saggy neck: he's Chubby Gillespie. Forgive the ad hominem stuff, but the contrast between sight and sound is remarkable. I'm exaggerating wildly, of course, but it's as though the Elephant Man opened his mouth and the voice of Smokey Robinson came out.

With no major hype campaign, but a wildfire word-of-mouth reputation, Antony has attained almost religious status for those in the know, and the spectacle of this man, singing his soulful songs of succour and devotion, is disarming enough to mend hearts and end wars.

There's speculation, during the interval, that some of Antony's more celebrated devotees may join in tonight: the album features contributions from Boy George, Rufus Wainwright and Lou Reed. None of them show, but after five songs, something even more extraordinary happens.

Antony gives a little speech about how every artist has someone who inspired them, and he is delighted to introduce the person who inspired him. And, to everyone's utter amazement, Marc Almond - making his first public appearance since a horrific motorbike smash - walks out into the semicircular void. There's a standing ovation, which Marc self-deprecatingly waves away with a twinkling, "don't-be-silly, it's-only-me" grin, before telling us what a hard six months it's been. That's an understatement. He sings Antony's "River of Sorrow", somewhat waywardly (that'll be the nerves), and by the end Almond is in tears, as are several people in the stalls. He tells us that he's lucky to be here at all. So are we, Marc. So are we.

Scousers, eh. Put them anywhere near a six-string, and they can't help themselves from launching into Beatles impressions. Accordingly, I Am Kloot are invariably compared to the Beatles, and the similarities go beyond Johnny Bramwell's accent and his drummer's droopy 'tache and have more to do with his Sixties chord structures and Lennonesque rasp. I Am Kloot do, at least, offer a more interesting variety: a deconstructed Beatles, or perhaps Oasis with more than half a brain, or Badly Drawn Boy minus the smugness factor.

"You may have just come to bury me/ But I'm not afraid of what I see..." As opening lines go, it's up there with the most defiant, particularly towards anyone wielding a critical pen. But I leave the Wedgewood wanting to praise Bramwell, rather than shovel him six feet under.

On a night when, just around the corner at Fratton Park, his fellow Liverpudlians have comfortably vanquished the locals, Bramwell also pacifies the Portsmouth crowd with his dry wit, neutralising a heckler by telling him to "calm down", à la Harry Enfield's stereotypical Scouser, before adding "in an hour you'll be off your tits". In a set leaning heavily on new album Gods and Monsters, Bramwell's trio play Beatles-meets-bossa nova melodies, with added lyrics about vampires (at least two songs mention the fanged undead). The pocket-sized frontman is a skilled manipulator, with exquisite timing: "This is a song about fucking..." (cheers) "...and disaster" (laughter). Sipping some alarmingly green Guinness, he judges it to be "slightly discoloured, but fundamentally sound".

Then the bombshell. "We're from Manchester," he announces, to my utter amazement. The penny drops. This isn't Merseybeat after all: it's Canalbeat. Is it too late for a re-write?

I Am Kloot: Ritz Ballroom, Manchester (0161 236 4355), tonight

s.price@independent.co.uk