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Top 5 Late Night TV Musical Perfomances

5. Fear on Saturday Night Live
_{I Don't Care About You, Beef Bologna, New York's Alright... If You Like Saxophones, Let's Have a War}

I was unable to find video of this performance. If anyone happens to have it I would greatly appreciate it if you could share it with my blog reading public. Thanks

What makes Fear's appearence so memorable is not what you see. It's what the producers pulled. John Belushi managed to convince Loren Michaels to book the unabashedly violent hardcore punks, and even convinved him to let them bring in dancers (including Belushi himself, and Ian McKaye) by volounteering to appear on the episode. Things started as just awkward as Lee Ving told everyone it was "great to be in New Jersey", and gave a spirited performance of their anti New York screed New York's Alright... If You Like Saxophones. But as the band launched into Let's Have A War the "dancers" got out of control and had themselves a mini riot, knocking over cameras and scaring the hell out of the audience.

4. Sinead O'Connor on Saturday Night Live
_{Am I Not Your Girl?, War}



It's O'Connor's 2^nd performance, an accapella cover of Bob Marley's War that made headlines. O'Connor quivers with what is, in hindsight, obvious nervousness. None the less she stands strong as she ends her emotional performance byb proclaiming "Fight the real enemy" and tearing up a photo of the Pope. The audience doesn't know what to do, not a sound is made. Even to this day its thrilling and shocking.

3. The White Stripes on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
_{Seven Nation Army, Jolene, The Hardest Button to Button, Let's Build a Home}



To my knowlege no band, or show has done anything like this. For a full week The White Stripes took up residence at the NBC studios and served as the musical guests on Conan O'Brien. Every night brought another fantastic performance from a band at their creative peak. This is my personal favorite (though the impromptu verse from John the Revelator during Let's Build a Home is also a highlight) from their week long engagement.

2. U2 on The Tomorrow Show
_{I Will Follow, Twilight}



The opening notes of I Will Follow announced the arrival of a new era... the U2 era. The ragged urgency of the Edges riff and the posturing of Bono were a perfect introduction to the arena rock by way of dancey post punk that U2 would embody and perfect in the beginning of their career. Even at this early stage Bono is obviously convinced of his rock'n'roll messiah role, and soon the rest of world would be too.

1. The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show
_{All My Loving, Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand}



Sure they were just a bunch of pretty British boys who played jangly pop tunes. Sure you can barely hear the performance above the screaming teenage girls. Regardless it is the watershed moment for American music and pop culture. Every other televised performance, every other cultural coming out is compared to this and pales in shear magnitude and importance. And whens the last time you heard teenage girls scream like that for... well anyone?

posted by Unknown at 3:31 PM