Ten Memorable SNL Musical Moments
The Onion AV Club links to ten memorable Saturday Night Live musical performances. This is the kind of piece that the internet is designed for, and I checked out YouTube to see which of these performances were available. Sure enough, several were, Pearl Jam, Sinead O'Connor and Radiohead. Unfortunately, NBC has had them removed for copyright violations. Even a chance to see a short 30 second clip would be a welcome addition to this article.
My Saturday Night LIve history begins during the Adam Sandler, Mike Meyers years. My top musical memory is probably the Pearl Jam performance that The Onion mentions, where Kurt Cobain had recently died, and Eddie Vedder kept opening up his flannel shirt to show the audience the "K" that he had written over his heart. I of course emulated this on a shirt from the National Zoo, and for the rest of the shirts life, I had people asking me what "ZooK" meant. Other memorable performances for me include the time Snoop Dogg whipped out a string of condoms during Gin n' Juice, causing embarassment since I was watching it with my parents, and the time in college that a bunch of guys left a party early because Phish was on, and they had to watch it live. But probably the biggest SNL musical revelation was when I found out that bandleader GE Smith was a respected musical figure, who had played with luminaries such as Bob Dylan. I don't know if it was the ponytail, the facial expressions or the name, but I never had ol' GE pegged as much of an anybody. How wrong I was.
For those of you upset by YouTube not featuring these performances, here is Sinead O'Connor's performance at Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary concert where she is booed for what seems like an amazingly long time just a few weeks after her pope picture ripping up scandal, and the music video for the Replacement's "Bastards of Young" which deserves to be remade by someone cool at some point in time.
