Observant “Saturday Night Live” fans immediately noticed something was wrong before musical guest Stevie Nicks’ second performance. After a flood of responses on the internet, it turned out that there was indeed a technical problem that was quickly resolved.
The apparently smooth episode for the 50th anniversary season (featuring Oasis impersonations and a fantastic monologue from host Ariana Grande) hit a speed bump just before Grande was set to reintroduce Nicks for her next song. The issue caused the show to put up a Nicks billboard for about 50 seconds while the emergency was handled, then cut to an ad break.
When matters were resolved, Grande appeared and reintroduced the legend. Shortly after the iconic guitar intro to “Edge of Seventeen” begins, Nick can be seen playing with her microphone pack to her right, but this ultimately had no effect on the singer’s performance.
This wasn’t the singer’s first time on the “SNL” stage. Forty-one years ago, in 1983, Nicks sang “Nightbird” and “Stand Back” on stage after wrapping up her tour for her album “The Wild Heart.” The host of the evening was comedian Flip Wilson.
And of course there was the iconic Stevie Nicks parody performed by Lucy Lawless, in which the siren reveals her next big project: “Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup.” The beloved sketch aired in 1998.
“I didn’t get the joke” Lawless told The Ringer in their extensive oral history of the fajita sketch. “I’m not from America and I’ve barely eaten real Mexican food, or Tex-Mex or anything like that.” Lawless even took her concerns all the way to the show’s creator, Lorne Michaels.
“I said, ‘Oh, Lorne, like… buddy, you know, it’s not funny. Please, please, just drop it. No harm, no foul,” Lawless said. “[Lorne was] like, ‘No, no, no. I think it’s here to stay. I think it’s here to stay. It’s going to do well. ”
The rest was Tex-Mex history.