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(Photos by Hillary Higgins, RedEye)

I was at the last show Outkast played in Chicago. It was July 2002 at the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park (you know it as the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, now.) I was a swagless high school junior, toiling as an usher, trying to holler at any and all females who crossed my path. Outkast turned in a boring set that night. They played the newish songs off of “Stankonia,” and we knew we were getting a new album soon. That night during loadout, there was a malfunction and a huge speaker fell on a co-worker, killing him. It was one of the weirdest nights of my life. That next year, i graduated from high school and Outkast “disbanded.”



Saturday night at Grant Park, Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton triumphantly took the stage. What happened next was a confident walk down memory lane and an olive branch to every generation of Outkast fans. If you were an early adopter, you got “Players Ball.” If you graduated high school between 2001 and 2004, you got “B.O.B.,” “Miss Jackson” and “Gasoline Dreams.” If you were late to the party, you got “Hey Ya.” Everyone won on Saturday night.

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This 20th anniversary victory lap, a series of festival performances kicked off by a tepid Coachella show that whiffed in trying to connect with the flower-crowned audience there, has been criticized for being a transparent cash grab, a worst-case scenario for fans who have been praying for any sort of reunion of this group.

As one of those people, I implore you to read this next sentence if you’ve ever considered yourself a fan of Outkast:

Manage your expectations.

They aren’t the same. They never will be. The show is a celebration of their legacy. That means it’s going to be filled with highs (You get “ATLiens” live. YOU GET “Crumblin’ Erb” LIVE!!!) and lows (it’s obvious that Andre 3000 never wants to play “Hey Ya” again and has a problem with playing his lyrics fast and loose, dropping some and kinda phoning it in all night.)

I can’t go back to that night in 2002.
Honestly, I don’t want to. Tonight, I got an Outkast show and that’s all I really needed.

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(Lenny Gilmore / RedEye)

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