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‘Saturday Night Live’ Technical Issue Before Stevie Nicks’ Performance Paused the Show

Published

2 months ago

October 13, 2024

Eagle-eyed “Saturday Night Live” fans immediately spotted something was amiss before the show’s musical guest Stevie Nicks‘ second performance. After a landslide of internet comments, it turns out there was indeed a technical issue that was resolved quickly.

The seemingly smooth episode for the 50th anniversary season (which featured Oasis impersonations and a fantastic monologue from host Ariana Grande) hit a speed bump right before Grande was set to re-introduce Nicks for her next song. The issue caused the show to put up a Nicks billboard for around 50 seconds while the emergency was attended to and then leapfrogged into an ad break.

When things were fixed, Grande appeared and introduced the legend again. Shortly after the iconic guitar intro from “Edge of Seventeen” begins, you can see Nick fiddling with her mic pack on her right side, but ultimately didn’t affect the singer’s performance.

This was not the singer’s first time on the “SNL” stage. Forty-one years ago, in 1983, Nicks performed “Nightbird” and “Stand Back” on stage after wrapping her tour for her album “The Wild Heart.” The night’s host was comedian Flip Wilson.

And, of course, there was the iconic Stevie Nicks parody performed by Lucy Lawless in which the siren reveals her next big project, “Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup.” The beloved sketch aired in 1998.

“I did not get the joke,” Lawless told The Ringer in their comprehensive oral history of the fajita sketch. “Not being from America, barely having ever eaten proper Mexican food, or Tex-Mex or anything.” In fact, Lawless brought her concerns all the way to the show’s creator, Lorne Michaels.

“I said, ‘Oh, Lorne, like—mate, you know, it’s not funny. Just, please, please, just drop it. No harm, no foul,’” Lawless said. “[Lorne was] like, ‘No, no, no. I think it’s a keeper here. I think it’s a keeper. It’s going to do good.’”

The rest was Tex-Mex history.

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