Lady Gaga, ‘Post Nirvana,’ Jack White, Cher, Will Ferrell, Robyn and More

John Mulaney may have spoken best at the most wonderful coincidence in the set -Friday night Live “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert” Special, as he called up the memory of “Saturday Night Live’s” much missed music guru, Hal Willner. The comedian talked about how the sperm figure in “SNL” music history would have loved many of the actions on the bill if he was still nearby. “He also wanted to hate parts of tonight, and I would have loved talking to him about the parts he hated,” Mulaney added.

The truth has to be said there was not much of the nearly three and a half hours of peacock-telecast that would have spoken as a hate-watch for the average open viewer, with the vast majority of multiple-generation-gang over artists acquiring Say. There was no train wreck, though Bill Murray’s apparently improvised Schtick and a messy Post Malone/Nirvana Crossover episode fell under expectations. But every show that has Jack White, Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile, Lauryn Hill, David Byrne, Robyn and Cher, who share a scene goes for more than just a rating grip that goes a certain distance to recreate the classic Eklectism of the 50th anniversary of its taste taste.

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Sure, the show missed some opportunities to refer to indelible performances from the past-equivalent, wouldn’t it have been fun to invite Ashley Simpson to come in for a redeeming do-over after all these years? At least Elvis Costello’s legendary fake start from ’78 was referred to, albeit by an impish eddie Vedder, not Costello himself. You can’t say that the specialist did not break from nostalgia to find ways to be at the moment, anyway … not with an exciting performance of Grammys’ record of 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 reviewed a number of tracks towards the end that seemed like they could be climax, including Cher’s “If I could return to time,” which has a natural resonance for an anniversary show. But when host Jimmy Fallon was asked to streeeeetch to an unpleasant degree, it was a long reminder that the show still had another trick up the sleeve. It was a final appearance of the only rock star that matters around 2024. White first played Neil Young’s “Rockin ‘in the Real World” Ulroen outside 30 Rock’s doors. Young can still own the song, but he is never torn through an upper-head-carrying slide slide on it as White’s. It seeded in “Seven Nation Army” – which, smartly, still incorporated some of the Neil text at first. If that’s good enough for each baseball stadium, it’s good enough to send “SNL” out for the next 50 years.

Lady Gaga’s talon-shaped hat in a box. Gaga’s performance of “shallow” was not exactly the news for the show, which came just weeks after she had made a very like -minded performance of FireAid. But it went down in the middle of the night on the East Coast, so the chances are that most “SNL50” viewers saw and heard it for the first time this year … And it’s a song packing a stroke in this particularly crescendo -filled event, Whether it carries a new confidentiality or not. (Plus, bonus points for the black claw hat, as a choice that called for the slightly daunting era of Gaga costume.) The highlight of Gaga’s several appearances came earlier, however, as she violated her way through “Dick in a Box” with Andy Samberg, It sounds as serious as if this was an outtake from “Joanne.”

Marty Culp and Bobbi Mohan-Culp take Drake in Diss Wars, whether they mean or not. It would have been a mistake to revive for many of “SNL’s” musically inclined recurring characters, but this special one arrived at the right balance. There were really only two we hoped, both involved Will Ferrell: Lounge-Singer-style Culp Duo and Blue Oyster Cult Cowbell Arrange. One in two was not bad. The couple ran through a medley that incorporated “abruptly”, “good luck, babe!” Space treatment, where the eternal joke is that these happy poison really means to be hep, but just never want to think of lyrically appropriate as much as getting the harmony right. Their recording of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” would have made an appropriate punchline, although there was no setup already embedded in Lamar’s rap: the repetition of the creepy Drake-Trolling “A minor” Line … which found Culps really performed a Yeoman’s job of searching for the literal note, may not be fully aware that they are in danger of being added to an injection dragon.

David Byrne in Communion with Robyn, Arcade Fire, St. Vincent, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Roots, The Spirit of David Bowie and the whole world. It was up to Robyn to wear the big suit or a baggy counterpart to Byrnes Formalwear, which we believe was intended to be a modest tribute to his Boxy “Stop making sense”. (Either that, or the “SNL” tilumer just put on the job after too many fittings.) The nearest “SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert” came to feel like a real jam was under the two separate performances in the last third of The show. The first and most expansive of his twin performance had the long -sleeping arcade fire, Robert Fripp’s role. Adding the Preservation Hall Jazz Band close to encouraging a New Orleans parade through the Radio City Music Hall Floor was inspired. Later, he returned with Robyn for another medley when her “Dancing on My Own” sees in Talking Heads’ This must be the place (naive tune). “The latter choice would have been a perfectly closer to a show with” Homecoming “in its title – it’s practically the best truly sentimental song ever written – but” SNL50 “still had a way to go.

Killed us softly by being in time: Ms. Lauryn Hill. When she came some time after the last tour of an anniversary tour with her colleagues Fuges was canceled under controversial circumstances, Hill came through with a look that let everyone know what they were missing … and who knows could come again. The tour dates that Hill and Company did in the states a few years back, had a loose, fun, spontaneous spirit about them, but carefully the setlists might have been calibrated and this short repetition was a reminder that we need her Back on stage. It is good that this one was not too long, however, it is not like any human could make a full set under so much fur without losing 50 pounds.

“Post Nirvana”: Two big flavors that taste … just ok together. This was another “SNL50” look that risked reminding viewers of what they recently watched at the FireAid Epic Show. Apart from whereas the surviving members of Nirvana were fronted by a number of female singers for this advantage (St. Vincent, Joan Jett, Kim Gordon and Violet Grohl), here, for the first time ever, they are reunited with a male singer who forefront Them: Post Malone. On paper there was some reason for it: Malone made a set of Nirvana covers under Lockdown, which he is officially releasing on vinyl. But no matter how adaptable Malone is to rap, sing pop and recently walking land, don’t click anything here. Plus, we liked the previous sacrosancing of the idea that if Nirvana were to reunite, it would only be behind someone who didn’t have a penis. With this bill out the window, this kind of smelled like meh -spirit.

Bonnie Raitt can and will make us love her. If you just had to choose an artist in the world that gives such universal respect that may not have been said about her about her, it may be Raitt who classified the collection with two early classics from the 90s, her slide guitar -Branded cover of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” and her tender song that forever goes out to only the lonely, “I can’t make you love me.” Whatever you might think of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, in the meantime, you have to respect his new side hustle as a humble piano soloist, most recently before this, when he had Grace Bowers added grace -notes during his Memoriam performance on Grammys, And here as he basically fulfilled the same role in serving raitt.

Brandi Carlile calls into immigration and gender identification in “The VITCH.” Current, much? Bonnie Raitt remains “the new Bonnie Raitt.” But if there is another “New Bonnie Raitt”, it is Carlile whose identity could not be more unambiguous, but who wants the very best kind of successor. Carlile’s performance here was implicitly a greeting to Grammys as much as it was a tribute to “SNL” as she sang “The Vitch” to a true mainstream star. It is one of the great songs of the 21st century, and one of the few in this show that evoked a social consciousness outside “SNL’s” walls. Too bad that any excitement is long -lasting if she wants to hit the impossible notes live: Of course she will seam them. And of course you will give her a quiet standing ovation, even be sure she would get there.

It’s ok to leave some characters in the past if the manuscript isn’t there. Not really sure what happened here when Murray’s Lounge singer Nick is a construction that some of us veterans “SNL” spikers still feel a great love for. But it felt like Murray was making this sketch up when he joined, and not in a way where the possibly improvised jokes landed … or didn’t step on the 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 aforementioned backup crew, they definitely sound like they’re just as ready to step into a Recording studio as the real life casting of “20 steps from star status.”

Gone Fishnettin ‘: Cher calls it back. Can we just give Diane Warren a delayed Oscar for “If I could return time”? No, the classic hit was never ever in a movie, so much less one that came out last year. But it would just feel right, wouldn’t it? Just as it felt right to see Cher tight her stuff once again in this power song that was devoted to this sustained feeling: regrets, she has had a few, but then again, almost too many to mention. In sharp contrast to the theme “SNL50” and how Lorne Michaels and Company actually managed to go 50 years without ever turning things up too badly. Perhaps her semi-seeing through-clothing spoke to it even more loudly than the song, as a greeting for pure stamina.

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