Late-Night TV Music (First Things First Edition) | Aug. 11, 2020

Anastasio returns (& vanishes), Humberstone compels & Alexander gets animated.

Jimmy Fallon has never struck me as a leader. And I’m probably not alone in that assessment. But I have to give late-night’s eternal puppy dog credit: He was the first host to return to his studio. And on Tuesday, his Tonight Show was the first program to host an in-studio performance when Trey Anastasio joined The Roots to rock out on I Never Needed You Like This Before. Too bad the video was mysteriously pulled from YouTube by the time I finished writing this sentence.

Thankfully, it wasn’t the only debut of the night. It was also the first time I had the pleasure of watching Holly Humberstone — the compelling British singer-songwriter played Overkill and Falling Asleep At The Wheel on Jimmy Kimmel Live! (Well, to be accurate, the second song was online-only, but whatever.) And to make matters more impressive, she played them solo, back to back, in a single take, in the dead of the night, while seated on the hood of her dad’s truck and then at a piano in the middle of a field on what could easily have been the set for an episode of The Walking Dead (though I am led to believe the locale was actually somewhere near her home). I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot of her in the coming weeks. And deservedly so. The last first: Popster Alexander 23 made his TV debut on The Late Late Show With James Corden, enlisting the aid of his cartoon selves for his fittingly titled tune IDK You Yet.

 

https://youtu.be/UgaWatKyoXQ