‘SNL 40’ reminds us of the power of live performance
“Saturday Night Live” celebrated its 40th anniversary with a star-studded and surprisingly inclusive televised gala on Sunday evening. The show’s legacy in comedy, late-night television, edgy and often surrealist content, and influence on the development of “comedy news” shows like those presided over by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, has been well-documented and is impossible to question.
But what about “SNL’s” effect on popular music? Well, beyond a doubt, that influence has been equally vast. And it all comes down to the “Live” in “SNL.” Yes, for 40 years, the show has offered us warts-and-all performances captured in real time and beamed directly into our living rooms in all their unvarnished glory.
During Sunday’s “SNL 40” broadcast, the significance of this fact was underscored several times by several artists, but most prominent was Paul McCartney in a performance with his regular touring band. McCartney sat at the grand piano flanked by his long-serving musicians and framed in a very cool, shadow-heavy lighting environment that lent spookiness to the proceedings. His choice of tune? Not some new ditty he was pushing, and most thankfully, nothing from his project with Kanye West, but rather, a torrid rendering of an anguished ballad from his first post-Beatles solo album, the elegiac and deeply affecting “Maybe I’m Amazed.”
By Jeff Miers
Source: The Buffalo News
