The Replacements appeared on The Tonight Show last night (September 9).
The cult alt rock band performed ‘Alex Chilton’ from their fifth album, 1987’s ‘Pleased to Meet Me’, on the Jimmy Fallon hosted show. The performance comes 30 years after the group were banned from ‘The Tonight Show’ studio at 30 Rockefeller Center, New York after a chaotic performance on Saturday Night Live. Click above to watch their performance. The band are currently on tour in North America, and will play Austin City Limits festival next month.
Billie Joe Armstrong joined The Replacements for their performance at the opening day of Coachella festival’s second weekend in California earlier this year. The Green Day frontman appeared with the Minneapolis band as their own frontman Paul Westerberg played most of the set sitting on a sofa, having suffered a back injury. Armstrong, whose own music was heavily influenced by The Replacements, quipped at one point during the set: “Dreams really do come true!”
The Replacements played live for the first time in 22 years at the Toronto leg of alt-rock roadshow Riot Fest in August 2013. Founding members Westerberg and Tommy Stinson have been joined in the reunion line-up by well-known session musicians Josh Freese and Dave Minehan.
The Replacements formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1979 and went on to release seven studio albums, the most successful of which, 1989’s ‘Don’t Tell A Soul’, peaked at Number 59 on the US albums chart.
The band played their final live show before breaking up in Chicago on July 21, 1991 and have since been hailed as an influence by Billie Joe Armstrong, who said attending a Replacements gig “changed my whole life”, as well as by The Cribs, The Goo Goo Dolls and They Might Be Giants. The band’s original lead guitarist Bob Stinson, older brother of Tommy, passed away in 1995.