Saturday Night Live music: James Bay performs ‘Pink Lemonade,’ ‘Wild Love’

James Bay was the guest performer for this weekend’s new Saturday Night Live episode, and as someone who appreciates much of his music this was something we were pretty excited for. “Let It Go” is a great song and “Hold Back the River” is one that grew on us over time as a listener.

Tonight, we anticipated that he would be there performing new music, which is precisely what happened when he took the stage. His first song on the night was “Pink Lemonade,” a song that he dropped just a couple of days before performing on the show. It was an uptempo piece that had him standing at the front of the stage, appropriately wearing pink. His shirt / vest combo was almost the most appropriate rock-star outfit that he could have possibly worn for the show. It also fell like he was having a bit of trouble with his hair occasionally in his face.

We will say that this song didn’t completely capture some of the magic, at least to us, that is there during some of his other numbers. Yet, we do think that it will grow upon future listens. This is one of the struggles with performing almost-new material right after it debuts — it does give you a chance to expose something to as large an audience as possible, but you don’t have as many viewers who are already familiar and addicted to your song on some level.

Second Song – This was “Wild Love,” another new song from James that was more in the emotional-ballad vertical. It was touching, powerful, and his voice echoes just perfectly in the midst of his backdrop. This is his comfort zone. There’s rock, there’s passion, and there’s a little bit of soul mixed in there. We have a feeling that this song will benefit from this appearance greatly.

What did you think about James Bay performing on Saturday Night Live this week? Share right now in the comments!

Meanwhile, be sure to like CarterMatt on Facebook in the event you want to get some other insight right now on the NBC series. (Photo: NBC.)