I am watching it for the first time in years, and am in the mood for any classic performances from over the years.
The only one I can remember is someone posting this amazing Dylan performance from the 80s or something (Jokerman?)
Any others?
sonic youth doing “100%” (iirc w/ paul schaeffer and band backing them up!) and then ending the song in a dogpile of guitarists
steely dan playing “cousin dupree” with a big SD logo on the front of donald’s keyboard and dave coming out and referring to them as ‘the sam donaldson orchestra’
two of my favorite bands....thanks!
this:
However, there’s another clip of James on Letterman from the mid-80s that I can’t find. I only saw it once, so my memory might be fuzzy. But I remember James exhorting Dave to dance with him. As the song had already run long by that point, they cut to commercial. When they came back from commercial, the song was over, Dave’s tie and jacket were off, and he was drenched in sweat.
This was from a special music-only episode of Late Night which aired on a Friday instead of Friday Night Videos. Other guests were David Byrne (plugging Stop Making Sense, which opened that weekend) and Boy George’s mom. In his monologue Dave said, “Let’s get a few things straight. I am not Rick Dees. I am not counting down anything.”
Only occasionally see stuff on Letterman but thought this was awesome:
did you guys see the ‘drum solo week’ on the Late Show this past summer? was pretty awesome
I always remembered this for some reason.
Bat For Lashes one is great!
i know man, driving on the wrong side of the road
Getting drunk in a pub.
this was on the old thread, i really like it
i’m convinced during her solo you can hear someone whisper “wow”
Thanks everyone, can’t wait to watch these tonight...
bat for lashes and belly vids are terrific
Oooh I can’t wait to watch these all later.
Pixies jamming out with Schaeffer p classic tho I can’t remember right now what song it was.
back in the day:
Oingo Boingo—“Nothing Bad Ever Happens”
Talking Heads—“I Zimbra”
more recently:
M.I.A.—“Born Free”
Janelle Monae—“Tightrope”
is this it Orange?
oh I think there was also a great performance by REM of “Orange Crush”?
thought this was an impressive edit
oh god YES I remember that, it basically reignited my interest in Sonic Youth
i don’t really care that much about REM but Pitchfork’s recent REM retrospective had a great clip of their first TV appearance playing “Radio Free Europe” on Letterman.
Apparently Cher, experiencing a comeback, was quite annoyed at being shanghaied into this performance.
if only she could turn back time
never liked any perry farrell bands but this vid kind of shocked me by how good it was
oh, its larry sanders not letterman
Not good quality but this is a pretty sick Dinosaur Jr performance