The Juxe: Favorite Letterman Musical Guest Performances
/David Letterman was well known for showcasing great music on his show until it ended in 2015. I was just going down a Letterman musical guest rabbit hole, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite performances. (I thought I had already written a post like this, but I searched and can’t find anything like it, so maybe I just dreamed it.)
The Orwells play Who Needs You
The Orwells were a pretty good garage rock band from the Chicago area. They went on Letterman and performed their song, Who Needs You. It was a memorable performance. The lead singer laid on the ground and humped the air and later stumbled over and sat in the guests’ chairs. At the end of the song, Dave—I think getting a sense of the band’s (or at least the lead singer’s) self-seriousness and pretension—immediately asked them to play the song again. The Orwells—I think getting a sense that Dave was messing with them a little—turned down the request, despite much cajoling. Eventually, the Late Show band just starts playing it instead and 65-year old bandleader, Paul Schaffer, gets on the floor and starts humping the air as well.
This became a somewhat well-known moment, and I think the band took a little heat for the way they came off. Even though I think they were probably just more confused about what to do than anything else. The band would return a few months later to play another song. This time, when Dave asked for an encore at the end, they indulged him.
Radiohead plays Karma Police
Jonny Greenwood on the Rhodes piano really makes this performance particularly great.
The New Pornographers play Brill Bruisers
The New Pornographers are one of my favorite bands to see live. If you get bored looking at one person, there are a whole bunch more to look at (even more true in this performance, where they have four people on stage just for hand clapping purposes). And this is one of my favorite songs of theirs.
TV on the Radio plays Wolf Like Me
Wild Flag plays Romantic
Carrie Brownstein has such great, high-energy stage presence, that it’s always a joy to watch her perform, whether here, with Wild Flag or with Sleater-Kinney. At the end of this performance, Paul Shaffer announces, “This is my new favorite band.”
Pulp plays Common People
Janelle Monae performs Tightrope
What a revelation she must have been for people that night.
Weezer plays Say It Ain’t So
The story goes that Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer, had recently had surgery to extend his left leg. The surgery was so recent that he was more or less immobile and felt uncomfortable being on national television without being able to put his all into the performance. So he asked his bandmates to really rev up the energy and put on a show to distract the audience. Bassist Matt Sharp delivers.