
On the final night of their first-ever tour, musical-comedy trio the Lonely Island were joined by lots of famous guests, including Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Adam Levine, Nicki Minaj, T-Pain, Michael Bolton, Maya Rudolph, Haim, Lester Holt, Alf, Johnny Depp, Seth Meyers and Jose Canseco.
Only Meyers and Canseco were live Saturday night at the instantly sold-out Armory in Minneapolis. The others appeared via video – and Muppets, in the case of Gaga and Timberlake.
The Lonely Island is a rap-loving trio of three junior-high-school buddies who landed at "Saturday Night Live." Two of them, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, were writers, and Andy Samberg was a cast member and writer from 2005-12.
The Lonely Island has released four albums, two movies and two-dozen singles/digital shorts. Saturday's 78-minute show was essentially their greatest bits ("I Just Had Sex," "I'm on a Boat") delivered live.
That is, after Meyers introduced them, saying that when these guys arrived in New York, he thought they might not be a good fit for "SNL."
"They wrote sketches," said Meyers, who happened to be in town for the Minneapolis Comedy Festival. "They rarely aired."
The Lonely Island are sort of a West Coast parody of New York's Beastie Boys (complete with vintage Adidas sneakers). The hip-hop humor ranges from clever to sophomoric to obvious.
A common response on seeing them live on Saturday night was a smirk or a smile. Unless, of course, you were singing along, which many of the 8,400 SNL-loving fans were. You don't LOL when you know all the punchlines.