Paul McCartney Closes SNL Season With New Material and a Familiar Drummer

Paul McCartney took the stage as musical guest for the fifth time during Saturday’s SNL season finale, offering a look at what comes next. He played “Days We Left Behind,” a track from the upcoming album The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, alongside the 1973 Wings single “Band On The Run.”

The backing band included Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, stepping in for McCartney’s longtime collaborator Abe Laboriel Jr. The substitution made structural sense beyond the music. Smith’s resemblance to host Will Ferrell has been a running joke for years, and the show folded that directly into the monologue. Smith walked out alone, pretending to be Ferrell, before the actual host stormed the stage. “He pushed me down backstage, and I fell hard,” Ferrell said, sending Smith off and taking a question from the audience. McCartney stood up, looking slightly lost, and the two traded a few more lines built around the old doppelgänger gag.

McCartney also showed up later as Nigel, a very British mechanic in a body shop sketch that played his deadpan delivery against the room. It was a small role, but it landed because he committed to it without winking.

The cold open went elsewhere entirely. Ferrell appeared as the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein, while James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump joined him for a duet of Bill Withers and Grover Washington Jr.’s “Just The Two Of Us.” Aziz Ansari reprised his role as FBI director Kash Patel. Later, Molly Shannon cameoed in a sketch about casting a high school musical, a continuation of a cut-for-time bit from Ferrell’s 2019 hosting gig.

Weekend Update kept things sharp. Michael Che delivered a line about the newly announced World Cup Halftime Show lineup, Madonna, Shakira, and BTS, calling it “something for everyone… to dislike.”