Gaga, Jack White, Cher, More

John Mulanaey may have spoken best to the most wonderful randomness in the lineup for Friday night’s live ”SNL50: The Homecoming Concert “Special when he, late in the show, invoked the memory of”Saturday Night Live‘S “Much missed music guru, Hal Willner. The comedian talked about how the seminal figure in “SNL” music history would have loved many of the documents on the bill if he was still nearby. “He would also have hated parts of tonight, and I would have loved to talk to him about the parts he hated,” Mulanaey added.

The truth should be said, it was not much of the almost three and a half hours exciting artists who acquit themselves. There were no train wrecks, although Bill Murray’s seemingly improvised Schtick and a messy post Malone/Nirvana Crossover section fell under expectations. But all the show that have JackvitBonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlle, Lauryn Hill, David Byrne, Robyn and Cher Sharing a scene goes for more than just a grading grip, goes a little distance towards recreating the classic eclectism in the 50-year show that the taste problems best.

Sure, the show missed some opportunities to refer to indelible performances from the past-would it not have been fun to invite Ashley Simpson to stay in for a childbirth do-over after all these years? At least Elvis Costello’s legendary fake start from ’78, albeit by an Impish Eddie Vedder, was not Costello himself. You cannot say that the specialty did not break from nostalgia to find ways to be at the moment, yet … not with an exciting performance of Grammy’s record for the year, “Not Like Us” … by Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer.

Here’s a look at some of the show’s most memorable moments:

Jack White gets his army on. The show went through a series of numbers towards the end that seemed as if they could be climaxes, including Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time”, which has a natural resonance for an anniversary show. But when hosting Jimmy Fallon was invited to streeeeetch to an inconvenient degree, it was a long reminder that the show still had another trick in the sleeve. It was a closing look of the only rock star which means about 2024. White first played Neil Young’s “Rockin ‘in the real world” our bolt outside 30 Rock’s Doors. Young can still own the song, but he has never ripped through an upper neck sliding guitar solo on it as White’s. It sailed to the “Seven Nation Army” – which, smart, still incorporated some of the Neil texts in the beginning. If it is good enough for each baseball stadium, it is good enough to send “SNL” for the next 50 years.

Lady Gaga’s Talon-shaped hat and other things in a box. Gaga’s performance of “shallow” did not give exactly any news to the show and came just weeks after she had made a very like -minded performance on Fireaid. But the one who went down in the middle of the night on the east coast, so chances are that most “SNL50” viewers saw and heard it for the first time this year here … and it is a song that packs a punch in this especially crescendo -filled Arrangement, whether it has a certain knowledge of recently. (Plus, bonus points for Black Claw Hat, as a choice that invoked the somewhat scary era of Gaga costume.) The highlight of Gaga’s several performances, however, came earlier, when she was through “Dick in a box” with Andy Samberg, which sounds as seriously as if this was a withdrawal from “Joanne.”

Marty Culp and Bobbi Mohan-Culp take on Drake in Diss war, whether they mean or not. It would have been a mistake to revive too many of “SNL’s” musically inclined recurring characters, but this special came to the right balance. There were really only two we hoped for, both involved Will Ferrell: The Lounge-Singer-style Culp Duo and Blue Oyster Cult Cowbell arranges. One of two was not bad. The couple ran through a medley that incorporated “Brat”, “Good luck, Babe!” “Oholy” room treatment, with the eternal joke that these happily marry really means to be hep but will only never think about lyrical suitability as much as getting the harmonies right. Their inclusion of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” would have made a suitable punchline even if there was no installation that was already embedded in Lamars Rap: the repetition of the heinous dragon trolling “A minor” Line … who thought that Culps really did a Yeoman’s job of searching for the literal note, may not really be aware that they are in danger of being added to an accusation.

David Byrne in fellowship with Robyn, Arcade Fire, St. Vincent, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Roots, Spirit of David Bowie and the whole world. It was up to Robyn to wear the oversized suit, or a baggy equivalent of Byrnes formal clothing that we think was supposed to be a modest tribute to his boxy “Stople Veneval” equipment. (Either that, or the “SNL” cost that has just settled on work after too many seizures.) The closest “SNL 50: The HomeComing Concert” became to feel like a real jam was under the two separate performances in it the last third of the show. The first and most expansive of his twin performances had the long resting arcade fire that came to life as his primary co -star for a medley of Bowie’s “Heroes” and that band’s “Wake Up”, with St. Vincent to play to play the role of Robert Fripp. Adding Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Nära to get a New Orleans-style parade through Radio City Music Hall Floor was inspired. Later he returned with Robyn for a second medley, because her “dance on my own” won to Talking Heads “” This must be the place (naive melody). “The latter choice would have been a perfect closer for a show with” Homecoming “in its title – it’s practically the best really sentimental song ever written – but” SNL50 “still had a way to go.

Kills us softly by being on time: MS Lauryn Hill. Will come some time after the last tour leg on an anniversary tour with its fellow fugs was interrupted under controversial circumstances, Hill came through with a look that lets everyone know what they were missing … and who knows, can come again. The tour that the date and the company did in the states for a couple of years had a loose, fun, spontaneous spirit about them, but carefully the set lists may have been calibrated, and this short reprise was a reminder that we need her back on stage. It’s good that this one was not too long, but it’s not like any human being could make a full set under so much fur without losing 50 pounds.

“Post Nirvana”: Two fantastic flavors that taste … just ok together. This was another “SNL50” look that risked reminding viewers of what they recently saw on the Fireaid Epic show. Except while the surviving members of Nirvana were fronted by a result of female singers to that advantage (St. Vincent, Joan Jett, Kim Gordon and Violet Grohl), here, for apparently the first time ever, they reunited with a male singer who fronts them: Post Malone. On paper there was some reason for it: Malone made a set of Nirvana cover under Lockdown that he is about to officially release on vinyl. But how adaptable Malone is to rap, sing pop and recently went country, something didn’t click here. In addition, we liked the former sacricalness in the idea that if Nirvana were to be reunited, it would only be behind someone who did not have a penis. With this rule, this type of meh spirit smelled.

Bonnie Raitt can and will make us love her. If you had to choose only one artist in the world who creates such universal respect that may not literally have been said about her, it may be raitt, which rated the joint with two early 90s classics, her slide-guitar -fuged cover of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” and her sore song that forever goes out to just the lonely, “I can’t make you love me.” Whatever you may think of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, you have to respect his new side control as a humble piano solo, most recently when he got Grace Bowers adds Grace Notes under his in the Memoriam performance at Grammys, and here as he in principle met the same role in serving raitt.

Brandi Carlle invokes immigration and gender identifies in his power ballad “The joke.” Current, much? Bonnie Raitt remains “The new Bonnie Raitt.” But if there is another “New Bonnie Raitt”, it is Carlley, whose identity could not be more singular but who feels like the very best type of successor. Carlles appearance here implicitly was a greeting to Grammy’s as much as it was a tribute to “SNL”, because she sang “The Joke”, a song that was closely identified with her appearance at Grammys 2019, which undoubtedly made the difference in doing her into a real mainstream star. It is one of the big songs from the 2000s, and one of the few in this show that elicited a social consciousness outside “SNL’s” walls. Too bad that some excitement is far away if she will meet the impossible notes live: of course she will nail them. And of course you will give her a quiet standing ovation, even be sure she would get there.

It is ok to leave some characters earlier if the script is not there. Not really sure what happened here, because Murray’s lounge singer Nick is a construction that some of us veteran “SNL” viewers still feel a great affection for. But it felt like Murray made this sketch up when he joined, and not in a way where the possibly improvised jokes landed … or not rose on all-star background vocalists. The best thing that could be said about the segment was that it proved that if you put together Ana Gasteyer, Cecily Strong and Maya Rudolph as the above -mentioned backup crew, they absolutely sound as ready to step into a recording studio as the real life casting of ” 20 steps from star. ”

Gone Fishnettin ‘: Cher calls it back. Can we just give Diane Warren a delayed Oscar for “if I could turn back time”? No, the classic hit was not ever in a movie, let alone one that came out last year. But it would just feel right, right? Just as it felt right to look at Cher Strut her stuff once again in this power song devoted to this lasting feeling: regret, she has had some, but then again, almost too many to mention. In sharp contrast to the theme “SNL50” and how Lorne Michaels and companies actually managed to walk 50 years without ever screwing things up too bad. Perhaps her semi-see-throughout outfit spoke to the even higher than the song, as a greeting to pure endurance.

“SNL50: A HomeComing Concert” Setlist:
Jimmy Fallon: “Soul Man”
Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard: “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
Miley Cyrus: “Flowers”
Bad Bunny: “Baile Inolvideble,” “DTMF”
Bill Murray: “You are all I need to get by”
Eddie Vedder: “The Waiting”, “Corduroy”
Tracy Morgan: “Astronaut Jones theme song”
B-52S: “Love Shack”
Backstreet Boys: “I want it that way”
Devo: “Unknowable Lust”
Lady Gaga, Andy Samberg, Eddie Vedder, Lonely Island, et al.: Medley
Lauryn Hill and Fugees: Medley
Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer: Medley
Jelly Roll: Johnny Cash Medley
Brandi Carlle: “The Joke”
Mumford and sons: “I will wait”
Mumford and sons with Jerry Douglas: “The Boxer”
Snoop Dogg: “Gin and Juice”
Snoop Dogg and Jelly Roll: “Latest dance with Mary Jane”
Arcade Fire, David Byrne, St. Vincent and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band: “Heroes”, “Wake Up”
Post Malone and Nirvana: “Smells like Teen Spirit”
Robyn and David Byrne: “This must be the place (naive melody)”
Cher: “If I could turn back time”
Jack White: “Rockin ‘in the free world”, “Seven Nation Army”