by Bill Pearis

Fred Armisen & friends / Stefon & Seth / Kanye & Ben on SNL

Even without Kanye's musical appearance, last night's Ben Afleck hosted Saturday Night Live season finale was especially eventful (and teary) as it was the final show for three long-running star players: Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Jason Sudekis.

Fred got his farewell moment via a sketch featuring his punk character Ian Rubbish who performed song called "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day." His band featured fellow departing castmembers Hader and Sudekis (and Taran Killam, sure to be a big player next season), and then he welcomed a cavalcade of musical talent onstage, including his Portlandia costar Carrie Brownstein, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, and the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones. With a chorus of "It's been alright, I've had a lovely night," it was a nice little sendoff. Video of that is below.

Hader got his sendoff moment, as expected, as Weekend Update nightlife correstondent Stefon, where anchor -- and soon to be Late Night host -- Seth Meyers finally gives in to his advances. "Weekend Update" also featured a surprise appearance by former co-anchor Amy Poehler who came out for "REALLY??" and stuck around to read the news. Seth, who is also SNL's head writer, will leave midseason next year to take over for Jimmy Fallon who is moving up to The Tonight Show.

Hader, Armisen, Sudekis and Meyers' departure leaves a giant comedy hole for next season. It will be interesting to see how Lorne Michaels fills it.

Videos below...

Continue reading "Fred Armisen, Bill Hader & Jason Sudekis bid SNL farewell w/ help from J. Mascis, Carrie Brownstein, Amy Poehler + more"

Seth Meyers

As Jimmy Fallon will take over The Tonight Show next year (and moving it back to NYC at rumored), the Late Night slot will go to current SNL "Weekend Update" anchor Seth Meyers, reports the New York Times:

In an interview before taking the stage on Saturday's edition of "SNL," Mr. Meyers said: "Working at 'SNL' requires 100 percent of your mental capacity -- on easy weeks. And so I had not really spent a lot of time thinking about what I was going to do next. Obviously I can't quit Lorne. So this seems like a pretty good deal that I have an opportunity to keep working with him."

Lorne Michaels will produce both The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, which will make their debut sometime around the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia.

Vampire Weekend were on this past weekend's SNL. This Saturday (5/18) is the season finale with host Ben Afleck and musical guest Kanye West.

The Stones setup @ Barclays Center (via BrooklynVegan Instagram)

The Rolling Stones are playing Barclays Center in Brooklyn tonight (did you get a ticket?), and as wished/hoped/rumored, they were in fact added to the much-scalped Hurricane Sandy Benefit happening at Madison Square Garden on 12/12, a show that will be very "widely distributed"...

The producers of "12-12-12" announced today that the concert at Madison Square Garden on December 12, 2012, at 7:30 PM (ET) to aid the victims of Hurricane Sandy, will have unprecedented and historic global distribution, similar to that of the Superbowl, the Academy Awards®, and the Grammys®.

Nearly 2 billion people worldwide will be able to access "12-12-12" on television, radio and the internet. The concert, presented by Chase, will be available to all 114 million television households in the US and to more than 400 million television households outside the country via networks and feeds in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Further elevating this event to its historic levels of distribution is live streaming on the largest online video services in the world, including YouTube, AOL, Yahoo, Hulu, and others. Combined, these video streaming services reach over 1.4 billion monthly unique users worldwide.

In addition, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, with its 239 million monthly listeners and more than 48 million monthly digital uniques, will broadcast the concert live on its radio stations across the country, and will also video stream live on iHeartRadio, Clear Channel's digital radio service, and across the websites and Facebook pages of its 850 stations.

The Stones join the all-star line-up that already included Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Dave Grohl, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Roger Waters, Eddie Vedder, Kanye West, The Who and Paul McCartney.

AND: "A new list of celebrity presenters was also released today, including Steve Buscemi, Jessica Chastain, Chelsea Clinton, Sean Combs, Billy Crystal, Leo DiCaprio, Jimmy Fallon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Karlie Kloss, Seth Meyers, Bobby Moynihan, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Susan Sarandon, Jon Stewart, Kristen Stewart, Quentin Tarantino, and Brian Williams."

Stay tuned for Check out the Barclays Center setlist, guests Mary J. Blige and Gary Clark Jr. included.

The Rolling Stones' two NJ shows happen right after MSG.

"Rolling Stone asked me to speak about Lana Del Rey. I wanted to know how big my participation in the piece would be-was it substantial or just a quote? Just a quote, they said, to which I replied that I wasn't super interested. Which was a lie. I have a lot to say about her, but no sound bites. You see, Lana Del Rey is exactly what I was hoping to inspire when I took on the male rock establishment almost twenty years ago with my debut record, "Exile In Guyville.""... [Liz Phair]

Read the rest of Liz Phair's piece at the Wall Street Journal.

And speaking of LDR, who recently performed on Letterman, Bon Iver wasn't the only musical guest on Saturday Night Live last night. Lana Del Rey, who was on two weeks earlier, came back to discuss her famous performance on Weekend Update with Seth Meyers. Check out the video below...

Continue reading "Lana Del Rey returned to SNL! What does Liz Phair think?"

Seth Meyers on strike - November 5, 2007 (CRED)

He (Lorne Michaels) is wary about what is going to happen this weekend when this venerable sketch show returns after more than three months. So for Saturday's return he has enlisted Tina Fey, an "SNL" alum, and the country singer Carrie Underwood............Mr. Michaels said that even with her familiarity with the show, he picked Ms. Fey as host because "it was just the right time for her." He noted that she had won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award and a Producers Guild award in recent months, "all in stealth fashion." Next week's host is Ellen Page, star of the Oscar-nominated film "Juno." After that things get murky until May when Shia LeBoeuf and Steve Carell are committed, largely because both have films ("Indiana Jones" for Mr. LeBoeuf and "Get Smart" for Mr. Carell) opening this spring. [NY Times]

Then Sunday night is the Oscars where it will be a battle between "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood", though according to the Guardian..

If the general public had any say in the matter, this year's best picture Oscar would go to Juno rather than joint favourites There Will be Blood and No Country For Old Men. For good measure, 20-year-old Ellen Page would scoop the best actress award while Johnny Depp would be named best actor for his turn in Sweeney Todd. Each is considered a long shot, at best, to win an Oscar this Sunday.