Saturday Night Live: The First Five Years

NBC tonight will be showing a special called Live From New York: The First 5 Years of Saturday Night Live at 8 pm. While we’re sure there will be plenty of hilarious clips from the likes of John Belushi and Bill Murray, we’re far more excited for the musical performances they’ll be dredging up.

SNL was one of the first shows on television that gave artists an opportunity to play without a net on live television. Not only that, the bookers at SNL were always willing to feature bands that weren’t exactly in line with the mainstream. Who else at the time would have let Frank Zappa borrow Don Pardo to perform an edgy satirical song like I Am The Slime?

Many of the best musical performances in SNL’s history occurred during the first five years of the show’s run. Featured on tonight’s special will be clips of The Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello and George Harrison accompanying Paul Simon. If you can’t catch tonight’s show, check out the YouTube’z below:

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5 Responses

  1. It probably won’t make the cut… But my personal favorite was the 1977 episode hosted by Steve Martin with musical guest Jackson Browne.

    I thought I had died on gone to pre-teen geek heaven.

  2. the end there was a song playing as the show wrapped up… I believe it was Tom Waits’ “Martha” but there was a woman singing it… what version is that? Anyone know?

  3. And then there waas Jenny Slate, wwho never appeared to recover
    from letting the word fuck” slip out during a sketch on her very first
    episode.

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