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Kevin Federline took to the stage of Chicago's House of Blues last night as scheduled, just a day after being informed by text message that his studding and couch-warming services would no longer be required at the Spears Malibu compound. Playing to a packed house composed of a sprinkling of actual "fans" (of ironic pop culture appreciation in general), interspersed among hundreds more who accepted the last minute offer of free tickets in exchange for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being able to point and laugh in person at the lone pimp on his day of curbside reckoning, Federline was quick to let the honeys in the crowd know that he was immediately available to be theirs for the taking:

[Federline] leaned into the crowd to touch the hands of women who were reaching toward him. Several songs into the set, he referenced his breakup with Spears. "Hey, I see a lot of fine ladies in here," said the rapper. "You know I'm a free man, right, ladies? You wanna dance with a pimp?"

Federline kept his spirits up throughout the performance before a standing-room-only audience (tickets were being given away free), though he addressed the "haters" from the stage, as a few audience members heckled him.

Still that didn't stop him from getting his newly single status across yet again: "All my ladies," he said from stage, "I love you to death!"

After the show, Federline lived up to his party boy reputation, by stopping by the Chicago hot spot, Cabaret, where he arrived just after midnight. He was escorted to a VIP section where he chatted up his entourage and danced to the thunderous music - cigarette in hand - rapping aloud when his own songs were played.

Spears, meanwhile, was at that moment scampering into Sony Music Studio in New York City at 2 a.m., wearing the same "little black dress with white pom-pom golfing cap" she has been sporting in recent days, an improbable combination that has all but become a uniform synonymous with her recent emancipation and desperate need for a stylist. It's a credit to both of them that the increasingly ugly dissolution of their marriage has not discouraged them from getting out of the house, where, presumably, their two infant children have by now figured out how to unlock the barricades on their cribs, overturned their replenishing Petco food and water dispensers, and are currently bravely attempting their first steps at the top of a large, marble staircase.

[Photo: Chicago Sun-Times]