Saturday Night Live: Mk.gee performs ‘Rockman,’ ‘Alesis’

Following last week with Chappell Roan, tonight Saturday Night Live brought out Mk.gee as the musical guest. We’ll be honest from the get-go here in say that this is not someone we’re familiar with at all. It’s almost the opposite of Chappell in that way.

So, what did Mk.gee choose to perform? Well, he opened the show tonight with “Rockman,” a song that actually felt like it could have come from the mid-1980’s in between the guitar sounds and the distorted vocals. Musically and vocally, it was solid — it was also pretty simplistic, with the entire band performing in front of a red screen.

While we do think that there’s a lot to praise here, we’ll also be honest: It is a little surprising that SNL did not go for a bigger name for a post-election episode. This is one of those shows that easily will draw a lot of numbers! Obviously, for Mk.gee, the opportunity to have this platform is a huge win — especially on a night like this. (If there is one criticism that we have of the performance in general, it’s that it was pretty difficult to understand the specific vocals in here at times.)

As for the second performance tonight, we got another song in “Alesis” that also had a similar sort of time-warp vibe. There was a little bit less distortion on the voice and thanks to that, some of the lyrics were a little bit clearer.

Our feeling about tonight’s music in general is that it was solid, but also fairly forgettable in terms of timing. However, one of the things that has always been nice about this show over the years is its ability to provide a platform for a lot of up-and-coming artists, and we don’t think that will change.

Related – Be sure to get some more thoughts on this week’s Saturday Night Live cold open

What did you think about Mk.gee and the performance on Saturday Night Live tonight?

Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, remember to also come back — there are a lot of other updates down the road.