Over David Letterman’s 33-year career hosting talk shows, a pivotal part of the show for Letterman has been the musical guests, often booked with ravenous variety. A week of diverse musical guests performing Beatles songs? Sure, why not? White Zombie, Kanye, and Björk? Yeah, bring them on. American television debuts of Pulp and R.E.M.? Awesome. A list of essential Letterman performances—from NBC’s "Late Night" and CBS’s "Late Show"—would be a long one. From Paul Shaffer and the house band on down, Letterman’s shows have had a special emphasis on music. It's a legacy carried on by Jimmy Fallon’s "Tonight Show" and its house band the Roots.
Letterman’s legacy looms impossibly large in so many ways. This is an attempt at featuring some of the finest performances he introduced and pointing out recent singular ones, here in the last hurrah of Letterman’s career.
From Letterman's tenure at NBC's "Late Night" starting in 1982 to his start at the "Late Show" in 1993 to his upcoming swan song, it'd be quicker to list who hasn’t been introduced on television by David Letterman in the last 30 years than who has.
Big Breaks
Letterman’s "Late Show" booked small bands with club acts still raw from the road regularly, often debuting them on U.S. network television. As long as the show’s been doing it—in 2010, CBS partnered with Vevo for the "Live on Letterman" concert series—it’s a still a bold move, as was the case withFuture Islands last March. "I’ll take all of that ya got!" Letterman said after the band performed "Seasons (Waiting on You)". Pre-YouTube, the White Stripes got the Letterman bump as well with its 2002 performance of "Fell in Love With a Girl". Some bands got the bump of a great "Late Show" performance opportunity, such as At the Drive-In’s kinetic performance of "One-Armed Scissor" in 2000. It’s a band that looks to be—and was—in constant overdrive. By 2001, the band went on hiatus.
The Dream of the '90s
Letterman’s "Late Show" rise synced up with the rise of '90s big-tent alternative rock pretty nicely. The show gave Pulp its’ U.S. television debut in 1995 with a performance of "Common People". A quick 1996 drop-in from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder with Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra (Vedder sang the climactic bars of "Black") illustrates the freewheeling nature of a Late Show taping. White Zombie had already upped the freewheeling antics with indoor pyrotechnics and jumping into a pool of pudding for its 1995 performance of "More Human Than Human". Play this one until the end.
Rare Network TV Performances
Aside from the relative rarity of Radiohead performing on U.S. television (see: Meeting People Is Easy, the tour documentary of the band’s anxiety-filled OK Computer era, which features the band’s distaste for TV appearances and a 1997 "Late Show" performance from the band), this video is invaluable for the short clip of Shaffer and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer goofing around the bandstand while Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead stands around awkwardly waiting to play "2+2=5". Damon Albarn is another Brit who rarely performs on U.S. network television. His Gorillaz project had a full "Live on Letterman" set largely unaided by its usual cartoon visuals. The group’s performance of "Feel Good Inc." with De La Soul in the house is particularly good. Björk’s Vespertine-era "Late Show" performance of "Pagan Poetry" in 2001 featured a Greenland women’s choir, harpist and electronica duo Matmos.
Rappers Got Jokez
Billed as Outkast by Letterman’s intro, The Love Below-emboldened André 3000 takes the lead, featuring a Big Boi verse in a 2004 "Late Show" performance that’s basically a re-enactment of the "Roses" video. Shaffer gets a saloon-ish little intro on keys but the best part is maybe the Dungeon Family theater troupe mugging to the camera at the end. Eleven years and something like five Kanye Wests ago, West gave his likely first "Late Show" appearance, performing "All Falls Down" with a fraction of the live showmanship he would later possess. Look closely and you’ll spot a goateed John Legend as a pre-stardom sideman. Also, big shout out to the College Dropout mascot bear just vibin’ out in the background.
Don't Forget About "Late Night"
It’s not easy to find decent performances from Letterman’s "Late Night" days on YouTube. Often, the video/audio quality is extremely poor because, hey, the '80s. But these performances—if only for the ruthless diversity of which they were booked—are treasures. "Late Night" gave U.K. pop group the La’s its U.S. network television debut in 1991 with "There She Goes". Murmur-era R.E.M. made its American TV debut with "Radio Free Europe" in 1983. That same year, "Late Night" viewers got a sneak peak at Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense-era live show with its performance of "I Zimbra". Sammy Davis Jr. performed "I Can’t Get Started" with Shaffer and his band’s "Late Night" incarnation the World's Most Dangerous Band in 1989. It may well be Davis’ final TV performance a year before his death. Recent Rock'N'Roll Hall of Fame inductee Joan Jett appeared on "Late Night" at the peak of her 1987 fame, with a badass cover of the Modern Lovers’ "Roadrunner". Yma Sumac’s performance—the "Peruvian nightingale," as Letterman called her– that same year was emblematic of the kind of fiercely varied music guests "Late Night" would book. Bruce Springsteen and Shaffer closed out Letterman’s final "Late Night" show in 1993, going way over time as a screw you to the network that passed him over in favor of Jay Leno for the Tonight Show. "You’re movin’ on up!" Springsteen yelps to Shaffer at one point.
Dave's Wild Years
No frequent musical guest embodied Letterman’s eccentric side more than Tom Waits. Waits and Letterman’s rapport goes even further back than the oldest of these clips: Waits performing selections from Swordfishtrombones ("Frank’s Wild Years") and Heartattack and Vine ("On the Nickel"). Most recently, he performed "Chicago" off 2011’s Bad as Me on a 2012 episode of the "Late Show". Waits has appeared on Letterman’s talk shows at least seven times and he’ll appear on Letterman’s final "Late Show" episode.
Beatles Week
"The Late Show"’s special themed weeks of music made for moments you couldn’t see anywhere else. Last year’s Beatles Week—celebrating the Fab Four’s 1964 American TV breakthrough at Letterman’s Ed Sullivan Theater—was stellar, peaking with McCartney performing to a packed Manhattan street corner atop the Sullivan Theater sign. Also notable was the Flaming Lips and Sean Lennon’s take on "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", a particularly bizarre performance for network television.
Dave Gets Kawaii
Speaking of bizarre, how fucking trippy was that Hatsune Miku performance last year? For viewers of Hatsune Miku’s "Late Show" performance last year, it was screen-on-screen meta, a possible glimpse into a future where television audiences watch talk-show performers on a screen, on a screen. After the holographic pop star waved goodbye to Letterman and digitally disintegrated, the host cracked wise, "It’s like being on Willie Nelson’s bus."
Feist's Vocal Feast
Feist’s 2007 "Late Show" performance of "1234" was a classic moment as soon as it hit the music blogosphere, with half of the year’s indie vocalists—including members of Broken Social Scene, Grizzly Bear, New Pornographers, the National, and Mates of State serving as her backing choir.
Taking It Outside
Leave it up to rowdy live acts Rage Against the Machine and the Beastie Boys to take their performances outside the confines of the Sullivan Theater. The Beasties’ 2004 performance was as fun and breezy—entering from subway stairs and Manhattan streets—as Rage’s 1999 performance was aggro and chaotic. Plus, the band’s stage and moshpit blocked Broadway at 53rd Street. Jay Z and Eminem played it smarter, taking their performance to the theater’s roof for a rare performance of "Renegade" off The Blueprint.
"My Favorite Band Playing My Favorite Song"
Letterman summoned Foo Fighters mid-tour to come play a 2000 welcome back show after his quadruple-bypass heart surgery, featuring Shaffer on keys. Letterman called the band’s performance of "Everlong", "my favorite band playing my favorite song."
"Are Those Your Drums?"
"I’m no beginner," Letterman wisecracks at the end of this supercut of him admiring musical guests’ instruments. After watching this, it wouldn’t seem shocking if Dave took up an instrument of his own as a hobby in retirement. Who knew that Dave was a gearhead?