Most Electrifying Live TV Performance You've Ever Seen

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on Recovery, a Saturday-morning music and youth-oriented series, providing Australian TV with one of its most unforgettable performances.

 

Points deducted for lip syncing, but without a doubt the most electrifying ending to a TV appearance

 

There are some things I remember seeing on tv that at the time were super awesome for me.
Unfortunately I don't think they are, despite being 2018, available online anywhere.
There is an SNL episode where Harry Connick Jr. around 90 or 91 does this set with his band and the SNL band, where it's this very long fast paced big band tune( don't remember what it was) and it seemed like it went on forever. I saw it in a rerun around 2004 on comedy central I think. The episode I believe was the first episode of that year or possibly the last of the year, but was pretty fantastic.
The other is on Jimmy Fallon where John Legend does this very slick cover of Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark"
Now I was able to before it got pulled from everywhere online, convert the video to audio so I could at least hear it again.

 

Prince medley from 'Art Official Age' and 'Plectrumelectrum' on SNL was pretty awesome.

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/watch-princes-electric-performance-from-tonights-saturd-1653735759

 

Same here

 

Was lucky enough to be in the audience for this thanks to Meredith (iirc) in the fanclub office.
Whole show was brilliant in front of just a few hundred people but as always this was probably the live highlight.

 

My favorite is still the TOTP Nirvana "performance" of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

 

Wow

 

and the Mondays on the same show

 

Keith and Jerry and some other Mick

 

The bit around the 4 minute mark of this for me.
The guy just looks so hauntingly lost.

 

Extra points for degree of difficulty.

 

A couple from The Old Grey Whistle Test that I saw are String Driven Thing and Circus, live vocals over pre-recorded backing, I think, and Re-Make/Re-Model by Roxy Music, although I don't recall if that was live or lipsync'd.

This one was a big WOW! for a 14 year-old, and it didn't matter that it was in black and white.

 

Cold Chisel made a statement on national Australian music awards ceremony that was never forgotten in oz. They refused their awards too.

 

Back in high school, this blew me away when I saw the Beastie Boys playing instruments and killing it live on MTV.

 

GNR "Live at The Ritz" on MTV on the Spring of '88. I was 15, dreamed of being a pro musician "someday". That summer I started my first band. Seeing that raw GNR performance was the catalyst to just go ahead and do it.

 

Their version of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" to end the show was as haunting of a performance as you will ever see

 

As it aired: Sinead on SNL. She tears the photo, dead silence, and fade for commercial.

(Long) After it aired: James Brown on the T.A.M.I. Show and The Who on Rock n Roll Circus.

 

Nine Inch Nails performing at Woodstock '94.


This star-making performance was the first introduction for many ears to Nine Inch Nails, along with a lot of the Wax Trax / Mute Records / techno-industrial sound that became a lot more commonplace in the 90's and 00's.

 

Ah, yes - my go-to example for "cocaine is a hell of a drug." XD

 

I like "Black Thumb" clarifying watching when it aired and after it aired.
There's something about seeing it the first time when it is broadcast as opposed to retroactively viewing a YouTube clip.

Given that, watching when it aired:
Beatles on Ed Sullivan (my original blast!!)
The Kinks on Shindig
Van Morrison on PBS' Live at the Fillmore East
The Clash on Fridays
Sonny Rollins w/Leonard Cohen on Late Night
Neil Young electric (RITFW and No More) on SNL

 

U2 Bad Live Aid.