Technical issue forces SNL to temporarily suspend live show

Viewers watching this week Saturday Night Live Maybe you were wondering about the seven-minute-plus commercial break before Stevie Nicks’ second song.

LateNighter can exclusively report that the show was put on hold just seconds before host Ariana Grande reintroduced Nicks. According to sources who were at the show Saturday night, the delay was caused by a soundboard failing at a very inconvenient time.

As technicians scrambled to fix the error, viewers at home saw a series of nods for a full 55 seconds before the show cut to a second commercial.

The show returned two and a half minutes later, the sound card apparently repaired (or backed up), and Nicks performed her second song live without incident.

However, there were some cascading problems.

Since these additional commercials had been running earlier, the show found itself in something of a bind in the penultimate act. The original outline called for there to be a commercial break between the Jennifer Coolidge Maybelline sketch and the “Hotel Detective” sketch, which would have given the show’s crew time to prepare for the next sketch (and host Ariana Grande, herself to move quickly). change).

Without this, the show was forced to air the dress rehearsal version of the sketch while the live audience watched on monitors.

As far as we know, it’s the first time Saturday Night Live broadcast a dress rehearsal during a live broadcast.