SNL50: The Homecoming Concert

Plot

New York City, Valentine's Day 2025. Radio City Music Hall is packed with celebrities, NBC executives, and industry legends, and the show opens not with a musician but with host Jimmy Fallon in a Blues Brothers homage, singing "Soul Man" in the black suit and hat that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made famous on the show's earliest seasons. Fallon then sets the tone with a running joke about the audience, telling the hall it is being watched by "thousands in the hall (and hundreds on Peacock)," and later announcing that no awards will be handed out tonight, which prompts a staged walkout by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson ^{13 • 14 • 15}.

The music starts with Miley Cyrus taking on Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" with The Roots and Brittany Howard, before rolling into her own "Flowers." Bad Bunny follows with "Baile Inolvidable" and "DTMF," bringing reggaeton into a venue built for Sinatra. Then the lineup sprawls across the decades: Eddie Vedder paying tribute to Tom Petty with "The Waiting" alongside Pearl Jam's "Corduroy," Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile, Jelly Roll, Snoop Dogg, DEVO, Mumford & Sons, St. Vincent, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Backstreet Boys (with Jerry Seinfeld oddly singing along), and a Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean medley that reunites the Fugees' core for a night ^{16 • 13}.

The comedy keeps interrupting, the way it should at an SNL party. Tracy Morgan revives Astronaut Jones, deadpans that he does not care what Lorne Michaels thinks because "he's gonna be dead in a week," and sings the character's theme song. Bill Murray returns as sleazy lounge singer Nick Valentine for a "foursome" routine with Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, and Cecily Strong, which reviewers found fell flat. Fred Armisen appears as Prince, with Maya Rudolph as Beyoncé, in a bit that exists purely because it can ^{15 • 17 • 16}.

The moment the night belonged to the teachers: Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer's the Culps, the stuffy, clueless music teachers from the late nineties, return for a medley of current pop hits delivered in their prissy choral arrangements. They work through Britney Spears' "Work Bitch," Sam Smith and Kim Petras' "Unholy," Megan Thee Stallion's "Body," Doechii's "Denial Is a River," and Chappell Roan's "Good Luck, Babe!" with the same square, joyless precision that made the sketch funny twenty-five years ago. Then they land on Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us," weeks after the Grammys and the Super Bowl made it the song of the moment, and the attempt at being current turns into the funniest thing they ever did with the characters. The entire hall, A-listers and all, audibly sings "A minorrrrr" back at them ^{17 • 18 • 13}.

The musical peak comes shortly after. Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear reunite as Nirvana for a surprise performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," with Post Malone on vocals, a pairing no one saw coming and everyone screamed for. Around the same stretch, Andy Samberg brings the Lonely Island medley, the songs that dragged SNL into the YouTube era, and since Justin Timberlake was unavailable, Lady Gaga steps in to sing "Dick in a Box" with Samberg at the piano, delivering the filthiest lyric of the night with the earnest, wounded sincerity of a Joanne outtake. Gaga, who was not originally scheduled to perform at all, then closes her own set with "Shallow" in a black claw-shaped hat ^{19 • 9 • 10 • 20}.

The back half belongs to the legends. David Byrne first joins Arcade Fire, St. Vincent, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band for a David Bowie tribute on "Heroes," then returns in matching oversized suits with Robyn for a duet that rips through "Dancing On My Own" and "This Must Be The Place," one of the night's most beloved collisions. The B-52s turn "Love Shack" into a party with Fred Armisen on drums and Bowen Yang and Sarah Sherman vamping. Cher, seventy-eight years old and looking and sounding half her age, belts "If I Could Turn Back Time," a song with almost suspiciously perfect resonance for an anniversary show; Kevin Costner is caught on camera losing his mind to it ^{13 • 10 • 20}.

Jack White closes the show and, by every account, blows the roof off the venue. He opens with Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World," a still-relevant 35-year-old protest song, folds some of Young's lyrics into the start of "Seven Nation Army," and sends everyone to their feet for the final sendoff ^{16 • 20 • 13}.

Characters

• Jimmy Fallon (host): the evening's emcee, opening in Blues Brothers drag and supplying the self-deprecating jokes about Peacock's audience size.
• The Culps, Marty and Bobbi Culp (Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer): the prissy music teachers from SNL's late nineties run, back to butcher modern pop with choral precision.
• Andy Samberg and Lady Gaga: the Lonely Island frontman and his last-minute duet partner on "Dick in a Box," plus "Shallow."
• The Roots (Questlove and company): the house band for the night, backing nearly every act and covering five decades of music in three hours.
• Bill Murray as Nick Valentine: the recurring lounge-singer sleaze, working a "foursome" with Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, and Cecily Strong.
• The cameo chorus: Tracy Morgan as Astronaut Jones, Fred Armisen as Prince, Maya Rudolph as Beyoncé, plus walkouts and reactions from Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, and Kevin Costner.

Interpretations and controversies

Nothing controversial, beyond the deliberate choice to keep the show off NBC's live airwaves. Lorne Michaels explained the special streamed on Peacock rather than airing live on NBC because "the language won't be in control," a nod to the Lonely Island repertoire and Tracy Morgan's Lorne Michaels mortality joke ^{21 • 15}.

Sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations

The concert was the opening act for the SNL50 anniversary weekend, leading into the live SNL50: The Anniversary Special that aired two days later on NBC. The Homecoming Concert itself streams on demand on Peacock ¹.