DAMN! Mick Jagger on SNL Last Night!

[sleepy]

Bitchin' Great. "The Last Time" and "She's a Rainbow" in particular.
It was As Brilliant as McCartney's Superbowl Halftime Show some years back.

You know, when I learned that The Stones were Not appearing with Mick in spite of what I had heard earlier (that The Stones were to appear), I said to myself, "Ohh No...another solo appearance with post-80's tunes..."

But DAMN! The first song, "The Last Time" started and I Was Left Standing On My Ear.
It Rocked!. It Vibed! I got A Buzz off of the performance.

And Jeff Beck was Blazing.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

funny... today a friend of mine was saying something about this very performance, i think. something about how 'mick is not just an excellent singer, but an excellent actor.' i dunno. whatever.

maybe the good witch of hell's angels can step in and provide a working link...

 

[sleepy]

Me, I'd throw the witch under my wheels as soon as I get any kind of car at all.

NBC has them up. I can't check them right now as I'm on dial-up, but I hope these are the full segments, or I'll be pissed!

Click the following (these in their original showtime order):

Mick Jagger & Arcade Fire "The Last Time"

Mick Jagger & Foo Fighters "Medley" '19th Nervous Breakdown

Mick Jagger & Jeff Beck "Tea Party"

She's a Rainbow

And the bit with "Stefon" was hilarious. Out of order to the show.

Update: Stefon

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Mick was in pretty good shape singing-wise... real horrible actor-wise. The Mick/Arcade Fire was the true highlight. Didn't care much for Mick's "political" song, but loved Jeff Beck on guitar! Made me think of this outstanding performance (look for Jimmy Page in the audience).

Jeff Beck- A day in the life -(Jimmy Page was there!!) - YouTube

 

[sleepy]

Hey Ruby, did they blip the word "shit" from the "Tea Party" song with Jeff Beck where you live?

I saw that there was a report of network affiliates who blipped what the report said was "a profanity-laced performance".

I only noticed the word "shit", but it played uncut in Burbank.

What really surprised me as I haven't been watching television at all in the last 10 years or so were the ads for Jack Daniels Honey and another for Tequila that played at 11:30 P.M. before the show started.

That was certainly different. I guess the N.A.B. is now different, or they are Finally Being Ignored as should be.

 

[sleepy]

And I paid attention to Jeff Beck, watching his playing style.
It looked like he was playing three finger fretboard lead mostly by stroking the strings with the flat of his thumb, while he also appeared to have a index finger ring pick for the double speed attacks/notes.

It looked like he was using the finger pick on double speed notes while holding the tremelo bar for the pitch bends, not relying on fingering for the pitch bends.

Being dependent on the tremelo bar for the bends.
I hope that doesn't indicate arthritis.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Hey Ruby, did they blip the word "shit" from the "Tea Party" song with Jeff Beck where you live?

I watched it on that link that you posted, and they left it in the online broadcast. Must be since Mad Men, It's Always Sunny and other basic cable mainstays get away with it so often, they're letting SNL have one a year!

 

[sleepy]

Only one shit a year?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Mick Jagger & Arcade Fire "The Last Time"

Mick Jagger & Foo Fighters "Medley" '19th Nervous Breakdown

Mick Jagger & Jeff Beck "Tea Party"

She's a Rainbow

And the bit with "Stefon" was hilarious. Out of order to the show.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/

they have it up as a full episode. unfortunately it's bollocks for me at the moment because of their laggy server (or this crappy ISP), so i'll have to check again later.

i did catch the lawrence welk segment and mick's monologue so far. i must say, mick still looks like he's in amazing shape. offhand i'd guess he has a topnotch diet, health routine and keeps the booze and drugs well under control. almost an anti-keith richards routine, perhaps.

the guy who played welk did a nice impression, i thought. the thing that kind of sucked was the italian-american music bit, with it's decision to go for obnoxiousness and sexual innuendo instead of camping it up welk-style. i mean, many of the original lawrence welk guests were unintentionally hysterical because of their ultra-sheltered, bible-belt nature, and SNL totally missed the ball on that. but that kind of thing seems to be what SNL has increasingly moved towards, from the very occasional episodes i've watched over the years.

a random note- what's also a little annoying was that american audience tendency to overreact over the simple appearance of a semi-famous person or the right catch-phrase or whatever. like what happened when the guy playing the italian singer first stepped on stage. half the audience starting whoo-ing uncontrollably and the other half started clapping like furious wankers just on the edge. seems like this modern routine always goes on for 30 seconds or a minute or more until every vestige of whatever has been completely milked from the situation. ugh.

i saw a really apropos parody of american shows a month or so ago called something like "how the UK sees american TV," but i can't find it right now. dang. it was a nice little example of how one minute of actual content gets turned in to five minutes of product through the use of commercial breaks, teasers about what's coming, refreshers of what just happened... what sort of thing.

okay, there's the rant du jour covered.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Shame on you, Nic! "The guy" you're talking about is John Hamm! You know, Don Draper from Mad Men? Sigh He's so dreamy. I mean, he's a handsome guy that other heterosexual handsome guys can appreciate!
I think what you've mentioned about the audience's reaction isn't the cause, it's the symptom. For about the last six years or so, SNL has started suffering from a terminal case of cameoitis. Just look at the blogs written about the show... it doesn't focus on if a sketch is intrinsically funny (and too many times they're not), it's all about who's gonna pop out of the birthday cake this week. It seems the show is catering to that lowest common denominator of shoving someone famous in front of the camera to get that Pavlovian reaction from the audience. So why waste time on writing something actually humorous when you can do that? I guess that should all be taken with a grain of salt, though. I pretty much gave up on being a regular SNL watcher around the end of the Phil Hartman era.

There ya go... I see your rant and raise it a rave! And if you haven't been watching Mad Men, I would highly recommend you start... I think you'll dig it.

 

[sleepy]

Well, you know I found the Welk skit humorous though it was just that.

I think the innuendo was the whole point. Notice that the skit played under the "PBS" logo? Out here in California and perhaps in NY, The Lawrence Welk Show reruns on PBS stations at about the same airtime as SNL. It's on for the old folks to wax nostalgic to, as a non-emotionally-taxing entertainment; nothing risque,
but I think there were two points to the skit.

(1): That fact and how ,in its first-run era, the Welk Show was talking about Romance, pretty much the same difference. The show was about sex, albeit exercised discreetly "between the lines" by the show; between private couples viewing and listening to the show who were at the same time entertaining their relationships on a Saturday Night in its first-run airtimes. I can remember the accordion segments with songs about "Poppa", but with no children in the reference.

And (2), PBS has, in the last twenty years or more, 'Gone Safe'.
Although you *might* still see challenging content here and there,
in the old days on a Saturday night on the local KCET (PBS Ch. 28: Los Angeles) you frequently saw uncut PG and R rated movies in that slot. In the 1970's Ch. 28 aired plays like "Steambath" containing nudity. And video artists such as Nam June Paik, some of which also contained nudity.

And there was a Student Film and Video program on one night after 11 P.M and one of the short subjects was simply a close-up of the filmmaker's privates as he masturbated and talked. Now, I didn't care at all about seeing that one, a waste of good video tape with no intent but to provoke the viewer, nonetheless, to see the drop in support by PBS/Ch. 28 of meaningful content that is considered to be for mature audiences, that is very rare or unheard of on broadcast t.v., is a major letdown.

These days they often blip words. Not in the old days. Not even F*Bombs. Most everything passed under the policy of "Viewer Supported Television".

 

[sleepy]

And did anyone notice that "The Lusty Lass" had no hands?
I've been wondering if that is an operatic reference, or simply the matter of censorship, that in old European law, a shoplifter was often punished by amputating the hand(s), though the punishment did nothing to correct the problem of needs, food, hunger, etc. or of character, A Lusty Lass, etc.

 

[sleepy]

"She was practiced at The Art of Deception".

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Uhhhhh... growing up in Kansas, I can guarantee that KPTS never showed a single thing like you're describing on your PBS channel, Sleepy! Damn... all the fun does happen in Cali!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

arne... i could maybe, possibly buy the 'innuendo was the whole point' angle if the very same principle wasn't beaten to death with a rusty machete across almost every other modern SNL skit on offer. i mean, come on.... whenever a segment lags in the 2000's, the writers typically turn to a toilet-humor or sexual innuendo angle to make it connect with puerile audiences.

long gone are the days when there was at least a plausibly humorous melding of the profane and a ripe target, as with something like the 'pete schweddy' segments.

even that stuff was about as far as the envelope should have been pushed, IMO. but it was ultra-dry and had a sort of tact based on the argument that "hey, we really were just talking about meat products, here. you can go down the complete list and every time it was a meat product in question, not a sexual part." and nobody was making crude, pantomimed faces to help the obviously chimpanzee audience get the gag. it was either that they had a 12-yr old (or higher) ability to connect the dots or that the jokes were over their head. ...an amazingly low bar to set as it is, and yet now it seems we have to help the 11-yr olds get in on the jokes. how hilarious.

- this has been tiltjlp bringing you another fine conservative rant, apparently. maybe after ten years it's not possible to stay a nicolas.b anymore.

 

[sleepy]

I understand what you are saying Nicolas B.
Anymore I tire of it when I Am The One who is supposed to be titillated by provocateurs of Social Behaviors just because someone thinks so...WINK, WINK! NUDGE, NUDGE! Y'know what I mean?

I am remembering that Monty Python/Eric Idle skit.

I am also thinking about the current film, "What to Expect" and how it failed at the B.O. Those who are pregnant are already there, while others don't want somebody else's version, or the trouble of it.

It all depends on what my lawyer has to say about it...do I need one?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

anyway, thanks, bill. let me try out some mad men for scale. i am a shadow of myself these days. but maybe soon my ship will come in.

 

[wizzard]

I really liked the performance as well. I only saw a short bit of it. Is he planning on a new solo album?

 

[sleepy]

Hard to say about a solo album.
I don't think anyone knows for sure.