Jimmy Fallon broke format Tuesday night to right a wrong he’d unknowingly committed against Mumford & Sons, delivering the longest introduction of a musical guest in late-night history.
Fallon gave an over three-minute preamble to announcing The Tonight Show‘s musical guest last night, but to understand why, you’d have to have caught his interview with Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford earlier in the show.
Mumford used his interview time to playfully call out Fallon for his disappointing introduction of the band at SNL50: The Homecoming Concert. Fallon goes way back with the band, having first hosted them on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon back in 2010, so as Mumford explained, he was thrilled when he learned the late-night host would be introducing them.
“I was like, ‘Oh Jimmy’s going to introduce us. This is really sweet!,'” Mumford recalled thinking. “He’ll probably go into our history, or he’ll talk about how many times we played SNL or how we’re like, the only British artist playing that night.”
But Fallon’s intro left much to be desired: “Ladies and gentleman, Mumford & Sons.”
“What the hell, bro?” Mumford asked Fallon last night. “There were so many things you could have said. And what’s worse: that was teleprompted!”
Fallon, for his part, placed the blame on Lorne Michaels’ shoulders. “We were rehearsing and I had a whole big thing,” he defended. “And Lorne was there. And Lorne goes, ‘We just don’t do those intros.’”
“You totally did them for other artists,” Mumford argued, sending Fallon onto the floor in hysterics by accusing the host of “wanging on about Gaga.” Mumford had apparently given Fallon a hard time about the intro the night of the concert, suggesting that the host could have simply said, “Here’s a band that needs no introduction.”
So when Mumford & Sons’ performance segment came up last night, Fallon used the opportunity to make things right. “Please welcome a band that needs no introduction,” Fallon began at the top of the segment. Then he gave that introduction anyway.
“They’ve won two Grammy Awards, two BRIT Awards, and four Billboard Music Awards. Formed in 2007 in West London, they immediately made a name for themselves with their unique sound,” he continued as The Roots provided a drumroll.
Fallon carried on with a thorough deep-dive on the band, sitting down as he spoke “from the heart” and detailed their history and discography. The host then flipped over the album art he was holding to reveal a labeled photo of the group’s lineup, diving into each member’s personal history.
“Am I missing anything?” he asked the crowd when he was finished.
“Well, I’d also add that much of Mumford & Sons’ lyrical content has a strong literary influence, with their debut album name deriving from a line in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing,” replied writer Brooks Allison posing as an audience member.
“Ain’t you gonna mention their sense of style?” added a Tonight Show cameraman played by writer Dion Flynn.
Fallon made sure to throw in a few “Ladies and gentlemen, Mumford & Sons” fakeouts before actually introducing the band’s performance… some 193 seconds after he began.
Watch the full clip from last night’s Tonight Show at the top of this post.
