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SXSW review: Big Boi at Austin Music Hall
(12:40 a.m. Thursday, Austin Music Hall)
Antwan “Big Boi” Patton headlined Thursday evening’s Afro-punk showcase at the Austin Music Hall with the same Dirty South bravura and amped-up vocal acrobatics that catapulted his band Outkast to world-renowned phenomenon.
Curiously, Patton never once mentioned his noticeably absent Outkast bandmate André “André 3000” Benjamin. The show was billed as a Big Boi solo gig. But outside of a few new tracks off Big Boi’s upcoming solo album “Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty,” 95 performed of the songs in the set with his band were joints missing co-creator, André 3000. Big Boi’s band’s musicianship was so overwhelming superior and the production values were so spot-on that it was entirely forgivable (except when he rocked Benjamin’s autobiographical revelation “Ms. Jackson”).
Aside from that glaringly ominous omission (they say they are still a band), Big Boi carried the show over the goal line on the back of his charismatic vocal style. He’s always been able to rock his verses and choruses in an accelerated double-time tempo, and last night was no different. Big Boi killed “So Fresh, So Clean” before he asked his band to increase the pace. “Ghetto Musick” and “B.O.B.” were euphorically transcendent. The DJ’s beats ignited the audience, joining them and the performers into one nation under a groove.
As Big Boi’s band and DJ vamped on the end of “B.O.B.,” he ever-so-coolly remarked, “Come on Janelle,” wherein Afro-punk firestarter Janelle Monáe returned to the stage after her star-making performance earlier in the evening to bust her signature get-its-freak-on dance, her arms flailing as her legs pounded in lock-step rhythm to the music.
With a respectably sized multi-ethnic, multi-cultural audience halfway filling the Austin Music Hall, it was such a beautiful sight watching all of the SXSW attendees from different backgrounds, from all over the world, move, bump and grind together to the “bom, bom, bomb” of “The Way You Move.” The song was undeniable, yielding writhing bodies from kids with their parents to senior citizen-age attendees.
“We got so many (expletive) hits that I don’t know what to do,” Big Boi said with a laugh. And he was correct. The only thing was that when he referred to “we” - and when he played so many Outkast bangers - he was ultimately drawing attention back to the fact that his very talented Outkast bandmate was missing in action.
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