Portlandia‘s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein are one of the most fun duos in entertainment today, and “Rock Lobster” by The B-52’s is one of the most fun songs in the history of recorded music. Brownstein’s band Sleater-Kinney performed at Terminal 5 in Manhattan over the weekend and combined those two fun things by bringing Armisen on stage to perform “Rock Lobster” with them, and it was wonderful.
Even though the performance was part of the encore and it wasn’t announced that Armisen would be joining the band, you can hear audience members near the taper speculating that he would be coming to the stage. They were right, as Armisen burst onto the stage, wielding a cowbell with great enthusiasm. The song was a perfect fit for Armisen, as the tune’s absurdity (here are the lyrics) and musical legitimacy perfectly mirror the persona of the former Saturday Night Live star.
This was the second time ever that Sleater-Kinney has performed “Rock Lobster”, previously playing the song with Calvin Johnson of K Records on New Year’s Eve in 1997. This also isn’t the first time that Armisen has collaborated with Sleater-Kinney, as he, and pretty much everybody else, also appeared in the music video for the band’s song “No Cities to Love”.
To make just one more connection, Armisen recently endeavored into music as The Blue Jean Committee, his fake-but-also-real soft rock band with Bill Hader, and recently released an album and music video.
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Featured image courtesy of countfeed
