We’ve done recurring sketches, one-off sketches, Weekend Update news anchors…so naturally, we should do a thread about musical acts. What’s your most favorite, least favorite, most surprising, most disappointing, most shocking musical moment on SNL?
Most memorable IMO: Laurie Anderson performing “the Day the Devil Comes to Get ¥ou” with a voice box. I’d never even heard of Anderson before this, and here was this skinny, pasty-faced woman in a man’s suit & tie (pre-Eurythmics BTW). She sings into her microphone, and the voice is digitially altered to be a deep, man-sounding bass voice. It certainly got my attention.
Also memorable:
-the B-52s performing “Planet Claire”,
-Gary Newman singing “Cars” (when the act began, he was situated in the back of the stage, and had handlers physically lift him & carry him to the front microphone - he never actually moved himself through the whole number),
-Elvis Costello getting pissed, refusing to play the song he was scheduled to play, and launching into an impromptu version of a song he was expressly asked NOT to peform by the network.
Worst: It’s gotta be Sinead O’Conner, during her infamous ripping up the picture of the pope. That in itself didn’t bother me - in fact, it got a hell of a lot more attention than it deserved. But it did come on the tail end of the single-most boring musical number in the show’s history, an a capella version of Bob Marley’s “War.” Demonstrated that O’Conner isn’t nearly as strong a singer as she was reputed to be.
I remember the Cranberries singing “Ode to my Family” (which I had never heard before) thinking “this is a lovely song.”
There was also Mr. Mister singing “Broken Wings” & “Kyrie”. A controversy erupted with people accusing them of miming to a recorded track. To me, the shocker was that people thought all the acts performed live - I had always assumed that when the song sounds exactly like the recorded version, it wasn’t live, it was Memorex.
The show when the Pouges were the musical act (this was on St Patricks Day) and Shane McGowen was way too drunk to stand, let alone sing…
Dennis Miller, in the Weekend Update segment actually called him out on it, though I dont think that McGowen was in any shape to care what anyone may have thought.
Ashlee Simpson getting caught lip-synching was an inadvertently hilarious moment. I was watching it live, and for a minute I thought they were going to just let the band keep on playing without her. (They should have; it was better once she stopped singing.)
Bono always puts on a good show when he’s the musical guest, but my all-time favorite would have to be when Sir Paul was the musical guest. I think he was in more sketches than the host was, that week. I remember that Adam Sandler did “Red Hooded Sweatshirt” on Weekend Update, and they cut to Linda McCartney in the audience doing the “dip dip dip” and “shama-lama-ding-dong” bits.
Billy Joel doing “We Didn’t Start the Fire” stands out in my mind, as does Neil Young doing “Rockin’ in the Free World.” But I think my favorite of all time was probably Kate Bush.
It’s hard to separate the worst from acts I just don’t like. I mean, sitting through Sade was pure torture, but as far as I can recall, she did a flawless performance.
Of groups I can fairly judge, I’d have to agree that The Kinks sucked. They’re one of my favorite bands, and I’ve seen them live several times (and enjoyed it), but they were flat on SNL.
I dunno, I think that was more or a regular skit than a musical number. I’m thinking more of the moments when the band simply plays. Something like “King Tut” or “the Blues Brothers” straddle the line though.
Metallica’s Fade to Black. I don’t know if they had a guest singing the La La La part (it looked like a SNL member even,) but it sounded much better than the studio version.
Not a musical guest performance, but early in the show’s run (first season, maybe), Gilda Radner and Steve Martin performed a wordless dance number with the house band providing the accompaniment. It was wonderful, and the sort of unpredictable thing that SNL never does anymore.
David Bowie in 1979 singing The Man Who Sold the World, Boys Keep Swinging and TVC15 with Klaus Nomi singing backing vocals. I remember watching it live with my jaw dropped the whole time.
During Boys Keep Swinging he did this weird video effect where his body was a flailing puppet wearing overalls. Towards the end of the song, this weird animated penis-like thing keeps popping out of the waist of his pants. It was such a subtle move that I believe it blew past the sensors and of course, it was live.
During The Man Who Sold the World he was carried out to the mic since he was encased in some kind of wooden Uncle Sam outfit.
During TVC15, he was dressed as some kind of stewardess (so were his backup singers) and there was a pink poodle on stage with a TV in its mouth.
It’s hard to describe. I wish I had a link to each performance, but being a huge Bowie fan I was mesmerized by the freakiness of it all.
I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but the most memorable musical number for me had to be Laura Brannigan’s performance of Gloria. There are a lot of high notes in that song, and she must have been having problems with her throat- she couldn’t hold the notes and had to stop singing.
It was also terribly poignant when it was replayed on an episode hosted by Steve Martin right after she died. Steve introduced the clip and said a few words after the clip, and he was just barely holding it together.
On a somewhat happier note, when Elvis Costello and the Attractions was on SNL in the 70s, they changed the song they were going to play in the middle of their second number. The director and camera crew were completely unprepared. Supposedly the director and Lorne Michaels were so pissed off at Costello they told him he’d never be on the show again. Well, IMDB says it was 12 years before Elvis was back.
As a viewer I thought the performance had energy and excitement rarely seen on TV - even live TV. I don’t think the camera crew or the director missed a beat - they did a great job, professional in the best sense.
I must have remembed things wrong, but I think this is the performance I had attributed to Gary Numan. I just remember two guys on either side of him lifting him up by his arms and carrying him to the forestage, and then carrying him back at the end of the number.