“Saturday Night Live” is back in full swing.
After Pete Davidson returned to the late night comedy to open Season 49 alongside musical guest Ice Spice, with Bad Bunny pulling double duty the week after, “SNL” has set the lineup for the Oct. 28 episode: Nate Bargatze will make his hosting debut, joined by Foo Fighters as the musical guest.
Bargatze is currently touring the U.S. of a standup set titled “Be Funny.” Earlier this year, he released the comedy special “Hello, World” on Amazon Prime Video, with previous specials including 2021’s “The Greatest Average American” and 2019’s “The Tennessee Kid” streaming on Netflix. He was also a part of Netflix’s 2017 comedy collection “The Standups” after releasing his first two albums, “Yelled at by a Clown” and “Full Time Magic.”
Bargatze’s “SNL” episode will mark Foo Fighters’ ninth time on the show as musical guest. The band, made up of Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee and Josh Freese, is currently on tour with its 11th album, “But Here We Are. Their previous albums include “The Colour and Shape,” “There Is Nothing Left to Lose” and “Wasting Light.”
Along with Davidson and Ice Spice, the Oct. 14 premiere of “SNL” Season 45 featured cameos from Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, whose romantic relationship has brought a whole new audience to NFL games in recent weeks. Sources told Variety that “no one knew they were coming” — the couple contacted the show a few minutes before air time and ended up joining a sketch that was coincidentally written about them.
The episode drew 4.8 million viewers on Sunday night, a 19% increase from the Season 48 premiere. And among adults age 18-49, it scored a 0.96 rating, “SNL’s” highest since 2020. On Peacock, this was the most-watched season premiere ever — more than double last year’s performance — and the third most-watched episode ever, following Dave Chappelle’s episode in Nov. 2022 and Pedro Pascal’s episode in February of this year.
