With 23 seasons, The Late Show with David Letterman ran uninterrupted from 1993 until 2015 when the host announced his retirement and was later replaced with Stephen Colbert.
When Letterman was on the show, The Late Show quickly became one of the most popular late-night talk shows in the entire nation. The show won six Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety Series during its initial run and helped Letterman amass an impressive $400 million net worth.
During its 22 years on the air, many celebrities made appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman. The show also had numerous music performances throughout the years, some great and some not so much. For instance, a Guns n’ Roses cover band was censored within five minutes of their performance, which was ultimately removed from syndication altogether. And MGMT’s 2013 performance on The Late Show was such a mess that the host looked visibly confused over what they were doing.
Who Were MGMT Before Performing On The Late Show With David Letterman?
MGMT is an indie rock band that was formed in 2002 by Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser. They gained plenty of popularity after they released their debut album Oracular Spectacular in 2007. That same year Spin magazine named the band the “Artist of the Day” and, a year later, Rolling Stone added MGMT to the top ten list of new “Artist to Watch.”
Despite their success, the band started as a joke. They would often perform dressed as giant snowmen and only the theme tune from Ghostbusters for 45 minutes. In a 2010 interview for The Guardian, Goldwasser admitted, “We really didn’t consider ourselves as a band and we were more interested in pulling pranks on people.”
Although they quickly rose to mainstream stardom in the indie genre, the band admitted that they were never looking for fame.
“When you’re touring,” VanWyngarden admitted, “you have everything taken care of for you. You see what it can do to people. People strive for that, where everything is taken care of for you and you don’t have to think for yourself at all. That’s not where we want to be. We got a glimpse of that and shrunk back. We thought, hmmm, I dunno. Let’s write a really weird album.”
MGMT’s 2013 Appearance Was One Of The Worst Music Performances on The Late Show With David Letterman
In 2013, MGMT performed on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote their new single, ‘Your Life Is a Lie’ and their upcoming world tour. But things didn’t go very well. In fact, their performance was a huge mess.
During the performance, a weirdly-dressed Andrew VanWyngarden sang the lyrics of ‘Your Life Is a Lie’ while repeatedly hitting on a giant cowbell, decorated with the words “Be Aware.” Behind him, his bandmates looked incredibly disinterested about the whole performance. It didn’t help that their song was rather repetitive and boring.
Even David Letterman looked visibly confused about the whole thing. After the performance, the late-night show host awkwardly thanked the band for appearing on the show to later tell the audience, “That’s it. That’s all we’ve got.”
Consequence of Sound called MGTM’s performance simply “terrible” and viewers took to Twitter to repeat this sentiment and call out the band.
Their Performance On The Late Show Wasn’t The ‘Weirdest’ Moment in MGMT’s Career
Although it gave them a lot of bad rep, MGTM’s messy performance on The Late Show with David Letterman wasn’t, by far, the weirdest moment of their career. After they released their fourth album, Little Dark Age, in 2018, the band created a music video that left fans utterly confused.
In 2020, MGMT released a music video for the synth-pop song ‘Me and Michael.’ The video, directed by Joey Frank and Randy Lee Maitland, shows the band as they come across a performance of the Filipino band Truefaith on YouTube. Enamored by their performance, MGMT decided to copy the song and release it as their own. Ultimately, the video shows the band getting caught and accused of stealing someone else’s music, to which they respond, claiming that they “didn’t know taking things on the internet was bad.”
Given that the song they “copied” did exist under the name ‘Ako at si Michael’ (which is Filipino for ‘Me and Michael), fans didn’t know what to make of this 6-minute music video. Ultimately, Truefaith took to Facebook to reveal that the weird video was, in fact, a collaboration with MGTM. They claimed it was “all part of MGMT’s marvelous idea of demonstrating the whole discussion of ‘Which is fact? And which is fiction?’” Still, this has to be the band’s weirdest video to date.
Source: NewsFinale
