Having seen Kanye twice before, I didn’t know which version to expect at Bonnaroo. The first time had been at Lollapalooza in ’08, and he was in full pop-star form at the time, touring Graduation and cramming a relentless succession of hits into a seven- or eight-song run right at the end of his set, like one massive celebratory victory lap for him and the crowd alike. It was one of the most inspiring and uplifting shows I’ve ever been to. Then there was the second one, last year in Brooklyn, on the Yeezus tour. That, too, was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, but it was a much different animal — grandiose, dark, theatrical, and yet still creeping toward the light by the end with a similar, if truncated and “Goldigger”-averse, run of hits.

The version of Kanye that showed up at Bonnaroo, perhaps fittingly, was somewhere in between the two, or perhaps he just carried his various selves with him all at once. The setup was far more stripped-down — just Kanye, a DJ, Mike Dean playing some keys and guitar, and a giant rectangle hanging behind them, covered in screens that began the show all blaring out a single, violent shade of red as Kanye came out and began with “Black Skinhead.” In a way, it was actually far more fitting to the aesthetic of Yeezus than the Yeezus tour itself had been — it was raw, caustic, stripped-down, Kanye a singular power perched over the crowd wearing that mask. For most of the rest of the set, there was a feed of him up on the rectangle, but it was done in some sort of ghost image, so that he’d be a glaring silver or white against similarly accosting backdrop colors.

But this wasn’t going to be a night like those Yeezus shows. Coming out just a touch late and finishing just a touch early, Kanye played just four songs from Yeezus (vs. the entirety of it, as he had been doing), instead giving the people a healthy dose of what they want, coming out swinging with a slew of Cruel Summer bangers before flitting through a significant amount of his hits — again, still sans “Gold Digger.” Then he gave people a whole lot of what they didn’t want too, naturally going on his rambling, twisting speeches that would swing wildly from self-aggrandizement to self-deprecation. That’s all part of Kanye West, and it’s all part of his show. Sure, it’s a bit tedious when it goes on for twenty minutes during “Runaway,” but the stuff is crucial to the fabric of what he does now.

It didn’t bug me much. Kanye is our most vital pop star currently working, and he’s one of my favorite artists to see live. The show had me totally, completely engrossed throughout — equally earning and demanding total absorption. I had gone in fully expecting it to be the best thing I saw this weekend — or, really, one of the best things I’ll see this year or any other — and I wasn’t wrong.