SNL50 Concert: Post Malone Joins Nirvana for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’

The surviving members of Nirvana once again reunited — this time with Post Malone — at the all-star Saturday Night Live 50 concert Friday at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

Introduced by Adam Sandler, who reminisced about when Kurt Cobain and company played SNL when he was a cast member, “Post Nirvana,” — Malone, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear — roared through a rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” during the show.

The latest sorta Nirvana reunion came two weeks after “Hervana” — the surviving members with female lead vocalists — appeared onstage together as an unannounced guest at the FireAid concert. For that performance, the band was joined by St. Vincent, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett, and Violet Grohl, and marked the first “Hervana” set since their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2014 and 2018’s Cal Jam. (There’s also “Sirvana,” the surviving members’ one-off “Cut Me Some Slack” collaboration with Paul McCartney.)

Malone himself is no stranger to Nirvana, performing a full set of the band’s music for a Covid-era livestream; that in-house performance — which did not feature the band’s surviving members, but had Travis Barker on drums — will be released on vinyl for the first time this April as a Record Store Day exclusive.

The SNL 50 concert also featured performances by Cher, Lady Gaga (who sang “Dick in a Box” with Andy Samberg before returning later to do “Shallow”), Jack White (a concert-ending set of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Seven Nation Army”), a collaboration between David Byrne and Robyn (“Dancing on My Own” and “This Must Be the Place”), Arcade Fire with St. Vincent and friends, Eddie Vedder covering Tom Petty and Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt with Chris Martin, and many more.

From Rolling Stone US.