Lady Gaga Killed It On SNL This Weekend

This past weekend, Lady Gaga pulled double duty as host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live. While we around these parts weren’t the biggest fans of her Artpop album, we were still curious to see if she had the chops to deliver a great performance on SNL. Lady Gaga doesn’t like to do things by halves, so when it came to the night of the show, she gave it her all — and she was really great.

Every SNL host says that they’ve dreamed of being on the show since childhood, but with Lady Gaga, you really get the sense that she’s been rehearsing her comedy bits in front of a mirror since she was old enough to reach it. She performed with great gusto, throwing herself into a variety of characters — including an overbearing dance mother and an Apple Store nerd — and seemed to have great fun while doing it. Let’s revisit our five favourite moments from the episode…

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When she killed it in her musical performances

Most of SNL’s musical guests do two songs, but Gaga really went for broke, performing all throughout the show. Her opening monologue, for instance, was set to a vamping, Broadway version of ‘Applause’, which then segued into ‘New York, New York’ as a wink to the home town crowd. A later sketch saw her singing snippets of ‘Poker Face’ and ‘Bad Romance’ while in full old lady getup.

Lady Gaga takes a shock and awe approach to her live show, so it figures that her two main performances were loud and in-your-face. R. Kelly stopped in to sing his guest vocals on ‘Do What U Want’, and Gaga displayed a pretty incredible set of pipes as they contorted into a variety of simulated sex positions. He even picked her up and threw her over his shoulder at one point, because she’s so tiny, you guys.

‘Gypsy’ came next and was somehow even more energetic. Dressed in her best Rebel Wilson wig and sitting at a pink piano, Gaga belted out the song as if her life depended on it. Her vocals were strong, but the most impressive part of the performance was when she stood up and her buff backing dancer managed to slip an acoustic guitar over her shoulders, which flared for about two feet in every direction. They must have rehearsed that for hours.

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When she played an old Lady Gaga

Gaga came at her SNL hosting gig with a willingness to poke fun at herself and her carefully-cultivated image; almost every one of her sketches featured some little wink or nod to this. Her best moment came when she played the future version of herself as an attention –starved old biddy alone in her apartment trying to convince her building’s superintendent that she was once a big star, on the same level as ‘Empress Beyonce’.

Kenan Thompson played the straight man, and his character got a couple of laughs — especially when he explained that he only listens to One Direction because he’s “more of a classic rock guy” — but the sketch was all about crazy old Ms Germanotta. She displayed a sense of fun and mischief as she draped herself in deli meats and flung telephones around the room, and sounded great as she belted out a piano and voice version of ‘Poker Face’.

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When she played a nerd

Celebrity talk shows are a favourite fall-back for SNL’s writers, and this week, it was Kim Kardashian and Kanye West hosting a morning chat program. Gaga played a nerdy Apple Store employee who was invited onto the show so that Jay Pharaoh’s Kanye could berate her for daring to assume the title of ‘genius’. It was a pretty bizarre setup, but Gaga displayed some fine physical comedy chops as the hunched-over nerd of the piece.

The sketch also found time for some fourth wall-breaking. “Honestly, I don’t care about fashion,” said Gaga’s Karen, peering right into the camera, after Kanye criticised her outfit. “I think people who try too hard with their outfits are maybe hiding something.” Wink wink, nudge nudge.

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When she channelled Marilyn Monroe and Marisa Tomei

Gaga looked great with a Marilyn Monroe-inspired look in her opening monologue, and her enthusiasm for hosting the show really popped. Later in the episode, she channelled My Cousin Vinnie-era Marisa Tomei, although sadly she only had three lines on the co-op board sketch.

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When she died

Along with celebrity talk shows, child actors are another one of SNL’s favourite targets. ‘Spotlightz! Acting Camp For Serious Kids!’ had precocious drama camp kids performing scenes from The Social Network and Breaking Bad. Vanessa Bayer’s Mark Zuckerberg was funny, but Gaga stole the show with a dramatic, writhing death scene as Forrest Gump’s mother.

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And some other stuff…

There were plenty of other memorable moments in Gaga’s performance, like her hyperactive dance mother and her acknowledgment that ‘Born This Way’ is actually pretty similar to Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself.’ On the whole, she gave a fun, cheeky and playful performance that reminded us of the Gaga we know and love.