Paul McCartney Rocks “Saturday Night Live”

It was an evening of the two Pauls on “Saturday Night Live,” and but it was the former Beatle who stole the show.

Paul McCartney was the musical guest for last night’s program hosted by actor Paul Rudd. Unlike other acts who are usually allotted two tunes on “SNL,” McCartney played three songs (four if you count the performance towards the very end as the end credits rolled).

For his segments, Macca and his band went back to the Wings days by performing the hard rocking “Jet” and “Band on the Run.” The highlight was his rendition of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” that later segued into John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”—the audience participated in the sing-a-long.

And as Rudd and the cast signaled goodbye at the end of the show, McCartney went back on stage with his band to perform the Beatles’ classic “Get Back.”

McCartney’s stint on “SNL” wasn’t just relegated to the musical numbers. He appeared in the Digital Short, “Stumblin,” singing and playing a harmonica . On Weekend Update, he and anchorman Seth Meyers did the voices of Camilla Bowles and Prince Charles respectively in an audio reenactment to the photograph of the couple in the car being attacked last week.

Even guest host Rudd couldn’t escape the shadow of McCartney. In his opening monologue, Rudd mentioned about him seeing folks shouting “Paul! Paul!” “Yesterday” and “Her Majesty,” and thinking they were talking about him. Then McCartney walked into Rudd’s monologue and said that he loved the actor’s previous film “Role Models.”

Rudd, star of the upcoming movie “How Do You Know,” participated in several sketches. In one of them, he played a guy who brings his girlfriend (Vanessa Bayer) to the house of his family who likes to kiss. He also a played a game show contestant and later an audience member who gets insulted on a TV relationship-advice program. 

Rudd also showed his singing and dancing skills while trying to perform a number from “Cabaret,” but gets into a tiff with the surly lighting guy (Jason Sudeikis). The aforementioned Digital Short featured Rudd and Andy Samberg literally stumbling in various situations and knocking over people.

Other segments from last night included WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Bill Hader) speaking from jail about supporters threatening to wreak havoc on popular Web sites such as Facebook and Netflix if he is not sprung; and a commercial for “Meryl Streep on Ice.”

Next weeks guests on “SNL” will be Jeff Bridges and Eminem.

Source: Saturday Night Live broadcast, Dec. 11, 2011

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