Alive with André 3000: Notes from a New Blue Sun LIVE

A few years back, I bought a big coat to prepare for a visit during a Chicago winter. A wrap coat in black and white houndstooth. The same trip I lost my coveted chartreuse leather gloves. Yet, it turned out to be unseasonably warm when I arrived. Fast forward to February 2024 on a reasonably cold night in the same city, I regretted not wearing a coat when I saw the line wrapped around Thalia Hall, a historic venue built in 1892. Yet, excitement would keep me warm on a night of many firsts: my first concert in Chicago, my first cell-phone free show, AND my first time seeing André 3000 live.

After posing for a picture in front of a chalk drawing of 3000, my love and I settle into our seats. The stage lights spare no time in laying the foundation for the bountiful show we came to experience. Ample. Atmospheric. Amber lights feel like a lift off as 3000 accompanied by his band mates Carlos Nino, Nate Mercereau, Deantoni Parks and Surya Botofasina, launch us into the layered possibilities of sound.

Laser lights interact with a spherical object onstage as 3000 centers himself in the middle of the stage, wearing his signature overalls and crimson beanie. His breath and hands working the wood. A hum is rising up out of me. A son of the south has risen on the westside of Chicago.

Magic is made in this example of what it means to move to a new plane and keep your insides intact. In 1994 he and his crew told us to “git up, and git out, and git something”; but the real instructive was not to let life pass us by. A young me exposed to the track via my older cousin, Kinta. And in that moment 3000 was riding time and building new possibilities out of what makes us human.

The first time I heard the album New Blue Sun, I knew that I would lay hands to it. Offer it as a sonic support to my energy work clients. And in-person, in the concert hall, there is an excavation taking place.

The music and the lights working in harmony to create a choir summoning our soul to where it may be nourished and tended to.

He moves from the flute to an instrument that resembles a marimba.

“How y’all feelin’?”

I’m feeling immense gratitude. Seeing one of my top five even if it is outside the sound that initially made me a fan. I’m feeling lifted.

“We are in Chicago!”

Then we get a guttural Chicago.

Yes, we are in Chicago. My love seated to the left of me. His first time in Chicago. Our first time together.

“We make it up as we go along.” Same…with a love like thiiiiiiiis.

Black Improvisation as the foundation of Black music tradition and genius.

“It’s new every night!”

“I want y’all to make noise tonight.”

Call and response.

Say less.

And you could feel the collective exhale as the expectations are shaped for our shared participation. The temperature rose.

Word. We can talk back. We can make our adoration plain.

FUSCHIA. BLUE.

Rotating blue ring lights.

Laser fuchsia interacting with the sphere/lighthouse.

Moving through a galactic forest.

Fuchsia transitions to white like daybreak.

Like sunlight shining through the cover of trees.

Spotlights—are we the stars in the universe of the southern son who moves through stardom on his own terms?

TURQUOISE LASER/AMBER SPOTLIGHT

The flute moves east and west as the amber spotlight spreads across the plane.

3000 seated behind the lighthouse.

We know when we are being called on.

The audience shouts in response.

The cymbals cry out. Do remember me.

GREEN LASER/AMBER SPHERES

Dusky amber darkness, like a sunset.

“Y’all wanna take a breather?”

The son is shining along with his collaborative constellations.

“Take a real deep inhale.”

We can breathe.

“Let it out.”

BABY BLUE LASER

“ALRIGHT, I HEAR YOU!” An emphatic witnessing erupts from the audience. We gon’ all take our time tonight.

It feels like creation. How did we all arrive here? Whose prayer are we?

This soundtrack of survival, calling forth the brightest outcome.

This is a revival.

What expands when we experiment? When we exceed the limitations placed upon us by others’ limited imaginations.

MOVING ENERGETIC GREEN LINES TURN WHITE AGAINST A ROYAL BACKGROUND

All your ancestors’ energy calling you.

BLACK BACKGROUND MOVING ENERGETIC WHITE LINES TO TURQUOISE/ORANGE

LASER

Blue spotlight glows down on 3000.

“We love you, Chicago.”

“We love you, André!”

“I love you, too!”

3000 weaves a tale of being an only child with an active imagination. Pretending to be a panther. Crawling through the house. Laughter. Humored by his then-imagination.

Whose imagination created YOU?

“We all just tryna get back to that kid shit.”

In the era of inner child healing, he is in good company. My inner child handed me a supply of instruments during the pandemic. When I throw my hands in circles on the djembe, I’m uniting the heart space between my daddy and I, beyond this realm. The man that burned bongos in the oven, tryna warm them up like biscuits, both scorched under his distracted watch.

In reading about Shabaka Hutchings’ journey with the shakuhachi in issue 28 of Sound American, there is a description of being a beginner and having to suspend previous techniques to move through a new process. Might there be magic in becoming a beginner again? Blessing and releasing previous certainty and making space for what will come. André, yes, who had a “whole rap career” reorients us towards starting over, not as blank slates but embodied vessels for abundance. It’s worth noting that Hutchings and his shakuhachi make an appearance on the Blue Sun track “Ninety-Three ‘Til Infinity and Beyoncé”.

RED SPOTLIGHT/MULTICOLOR RED RAINBOW FLOODLIGHTS.

The shadows highlight the transition to a longer flute.

BLACK FOG/TURQUOISE LIGHTHOUSE/FLASHING AMBER LIGHTS

We are in a portal. A journey. We are on the move. This moment turned ritual through the repetition of notes.

RED LIGHTS TURN RAINBOW/BLUE AND GREEN LASER LIGHTS

We are arriving, ascending.

SPHERE LIGHTS TURN BLUE/LASER LIGHT TURNS CITRON

Don’t give up. You’re so close.

TURQUOISE BLUE/SPOTLIGHTS BY THE TWO

They are waiting to greet you in the distance.

Keep going.

What did our ancestors hear while on the run from the hounds? While halving themselves in the thickness of despair?

Keep going

Big ol’ round note.

It can hold us.

3000 tells us that bandmate Carlos Nino invited him to an Alice Coltrane tribute. 3000 joked that

because his flutes were tuned all crazy, he didn’t want to “fuck everybody up.”

Who amongst us has not been a beginner? Had to wade in the deep waters of unsure things?

FUSCHIA LASER/THE SPOTLIGHTS DANCE

“I am André 3000.”

“I’m in a group called Outkast.”

“He had a whole rap career.”

“I want everyone to say whaddup Big Boi.”

And we do.

TURQUOISE ROTATED TO ORANGE LASER/LIGHTHOUSE TURQUOISE/SINGLE BLUE

ROUND SUN/GREEN LASER

This is a sacred space of celebration.

The flute lifted to the heavens, testing the limits of the sky. Our bodies at ground level, our

spirits sent floating as notes ride our nerve endings.

“Whew!”

“This our last one.”

BLUE ROTATIONS/CHARTREUSE LASER LIGHTHOUSE

Raise the temperature.

We lit lit.

Lift off.

Raise us up.

André and squad lift us up where we belong.

He begins speaking in a language that I do not recognize. Yet it feels familiar. Is it Swahili?

“Chicago, I just made that up.”

His collection of wisdom manifested in words without definition. (Also me: is this how cults start?!)

We’ve reached the bend of the final note.

But in the end, ain’t all this shit made up? Power to the people that make it mean something.

February 12, 2024

André 3000: New Blue Sun LIVE

Thalia Hall

1807 S Allport St

Chicago, IL 60608