I'd like to think that in the special waiting lounge for skeptics in the Great Beyond, the late great Steve Allen, author of so many of the great live visual stunts in late-night television history, was watching when this tremendous sight gag played out on Thursday's "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien." (By the way, I'm finding it is still a blast to type those words.)
Max Weinberg has been Bruce Springsteen's drummer since 1974. He hasn't missed a tour date in all those years, and as you can imagine, that record was in a bit of jeopardy when it was announced that the Boss would be world-touring this summer just as "The Tonight Show" was signing on the air. But they worked it out. There is a Weinberg-Springsteen Rule at NBC, and it was adhered to on last night's broadcast.
But boy, did Max cut it close!
As an added touch, the band and Max also played "together" (the band in a picture-in-picture frame) going into and out of the next break, and Conan checked in with Max at an In-n-Out Burger drive through and the airport:
Neither of these videos will show for me (using Firefox or Safari latest on Mac OS X 10.5.7). Uggh.
[Reboot, my friend -- we have the same setup and they're working fine for me. --AB]
Posted by: BillSaysThis | June 26, 2009 at 11:14 AM
Well, it's not quite true that Max has never missed a tour date. In fact, He missed a handful a few weeks ago when the Bruce and the E Street Band played Sweden and Norway. Max's son Jay took over at drums, and I believe he's planning on taking over some dates later in the year as well.
[OK, I was working off information from this spring, so I'll double-check that.--AB]
Posted by: Steve | June 26, 2009 at 11:45 AM
I'm also using Safari on Mac OS X 10.5.7. I rebooted and they still won't play.
Posted by: Markley | June 26, 2009 at 01:16 PM
Ha! Wonder how Max likes living in LA, moving his family out there... He's wonderful, but somehow something wrong about the Boss's drummer living on West Coast. OTOH, so does Bruce, a lot of the time.
Posted by: Erin | June 26, 2009 at 08:00 PM
"Type 'what words?'" What excites you? "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien?"
Posted by: Strussman | June 26, 2009 at 08:08 PM
I have Safari v4 on OSX 10.5.7 and it worked for me.
Are either of you outside of the U.S.? That may be the problem, as NBC may not allow foreign viewing of the show, like they do with hulu.com
Posted by: Shawn Levasseur | June 28, 2009 at 10:53 PM