Editor’s Note: Among the thousands of SNL cast, crew and associates packed into Radio City last night was LateNighter’s Bill Carter, whose own association with the show and its creator goes back to the very beginning. We asked him to report back on his experience, and he filed this report.
In New York City, energy is rarely in short supply. Nor noise, glamor, celebrity.
Somehow the production team at Saturday Night Live, led as always by its creator Lorne Michaels (who was showered with encomiums from the stage to his apparent discomfit), harnessed all of that in one place Friday night. The anniversary concert for the show’s 50th year on television was displayed on Radio City Music Hall’s massive stage, in front of a room full of performers associated with the show, plus a lot of their friends.
The show was a stunner, the stun only amplified by the fact that it wasn’t even on NBC. Streaming has of course taken over the medium of television, but not so much for major live events and it’s hard to think of many bigger recent ones in terms of music than this one.
Yeah, the Grammys put on a monster show annually—and still on an actual national network, CBS—but that features mostly the best performers of that awards year.
SNL brought together an array of stars from each of the decades it has been on the air, representing a staggering assortment of the genres from all those decades, and underscored again how SNL knows how to do live, as it’s happening, television.
In Radio City itself, in the presence of that sweeping, deep, multi-staged set, featuring familiar images of the city, and a light show worthy of any Broadway musical, the electricity was especially potent, dominated by a sound system that rocked the place to its ultra-high rafters on numerous occasions.
Watching some of the song sets later as presented on TV—that is, on Peacock, NBC’s streaming channel—the advantages of multiple camera shors and close-ups were apparent. But so were the limitations of sound delivery. In the hall itself, people were surrounded by thudding, pulsating beats and soaring vocals that lifted them from their seats all but involuntarily.
Post Nirvana *full performance* #SNLHomecoming #SNL50 #PostNirvana pic.twitter.com/9dzlokozHM
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) February 15, 2025
Nirvana almost blew the place open, with Post Malone standing in for the late Kurt Cobain, and the brilliant Dave Grohl beating his drums into submission. Jack White blasted a hard rocking finale. Arcade Fire and associated artists staged an audience-aided anthem march up the aisles and out into the lobby (that part wasn’t televised but was captured on cell phone video). The boggling range of styles—Bad Bunny to Eddie Vedder to a devastating diva lineup of Miley Cyrus, Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlisle, Cher, Ms. Lauryn Hill, and Lady Gaga—was never really jarring (OK, maybe once), because all the performances were so well staged.
The once came when the revival of The Backstreet Boys (the boys now in their late 40’s and early-50s) had the generation that idolized them dancing at their seats and singing along with abandon to “I Want It That Way” was succeeded immediately by a new wave of the now old-wave, the synth-pop act Devo, decked out in their traditional yellow rain slickers, singing/performing “Uncontrollable Urge,” which, while totally arresting, was distinctly not sing-along-able.
The concert was a brilliant augment to the much-anticipated main attraction, Sunday night’s actual 50th anniversary show. For one thing, RCMH has ample seats to welcome a host of people who could never all cram into Studio 8H in Rock Center down the block. That included everyone from pretty much the entire living cast of SNL (past and present), to NBC staff who have history with the show over the years, to advertising clients who got a little love for their ad checks with a free ticket to the show.
The lobby outside the orchestra seats was a crush of all these sorts of folks. The celebrities were mixing easily. Billy Crystal was hanging with Josh Gad, his pal from their short-run FX sitcom The Comedians. Ray Romano was accompanied by his Everybody Loves Raymond executive producer (and current food explorer for Netflix) Phil Rosenthal.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus was there, along with Amy Poehler, Chevy Chase, looking a bit frail but happy to be a part of the event, and Judd Apatow, and recent cast like Aidy Bryant and Punkie Johnson, and current cast members Heidi Gardner in a striking white ensemble, Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, James Austin Johnson (ready to be very busy for the next four years) and Ego Nwodim.
Elvis Costello, who wasn’t performing, was mixing with friends in the lobby. He said he greatly enjoyed the recent documentary on SNL music acts over the years. “I was very surprised to see myself sort of in the middle of it,” he said. His impromptu change of song choices in the middle of his performance in 1977 did not immediately endear him to the staff, but he was invited back many times.
One of the many NBC bosses over the tenure of the show, and a producer at heart himself, Jeff Zucker, had nothing but compliments for the production in the lobby afterwards.
Seth Meyers, one the icons of “Update” and still a Michaels’ disciple as host of Late Night, said the only concern Lorne had had about Sunday’s anniversary show is “trying to live up to the 40th anniversary show.”
Despite the three-hour length, the show moved quickly, even with commercial interruptions, because for those breaks the live audience was treated with clips of musical performances from the show’s archives, many of which are not frequently included in highlight reels:
Luther Vandross singing “Never Too Much” from 1982; Musical Youth singing “Pass the Dutchie” also from 1982; REM singing “Losing My Religion” from 1991; Aretha singing “Chain of Fools” from 1994.
The comedy acts were music-oriented, of course, and most scored—especially the comeback of the singing music teachers, Marty Culp and Bobbie Mohan-Culp, (Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer) attempting and butchering a hip-hop medley featuring Kendrick (“Kenny” to them) Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
Gastayer was a multiple funny presence, especially during Bill Murray’s comeback as lounge singer Nick Valentine as one of his three romantic partners (with Maya Rudolph and Cecily Strong.)
But their songs and another comic highlight, a musical medley of Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island’s most memorable SNL Digital Shorts (with Lady Gaga filling in for Justin Timberlake on “Dick in a Box’’), might have been possible only on streaming, no matter how limited the reach might have been.
#SNLHomecoming Lady Gaga kicks off a Lonely Island super medley #LonelyIsland pic.twitter.com/14mZGVYrcS
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) February 15, 2025
Marty Culp’s description of “frisky songs” was putting it mildly.
Was Michaels perhaps a bit disappointed that this elaborately and mostly flawlessly produced (by him and Mark Ronson) extravaganza had been relegated to Peacock?
Well, it was referred to on several occasions by host Jimmy Fallon who referenced the show being enjoyed by thousands in the hall (and “hundreds on Peacock.”)
The thousands would have had the best of it no matter where it showed up on a TV set.
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