Just an update to Look Hear, Part Two…
Well, she dropped off the TV radar for a while, but Maddie Rice has resurfaced on our late-night idiot boxes.
Her breakout gig on Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS) as the guitarist of house band Stay Human was bit uncertain following a few spotty cameos a couple of years ago. She was gone for a while, then she was back, then she was gone for a longer while, then back for a shorter time. The certainty set in when multi-instrumentalist Louis Cato settled in to the guitar role on a nightly basis and, apparently, Maddie’s likeness was removed from the stained-glass decor that adorns the upper reaches of the Ed Sullivan Theatre. That’ll do it.
Well a masked Maddie can now be seen on three of every four Saturday nights at 11:29 EST on NBC as the axesmith of Saturday Night Live‘s house band. She stands (or sits, for the opening monologue), directly behind bandleader and saxophonist Lenny Pickett. Her profile is somewhat higher than it was on LSSC, with more feature guitar parts for her to ply her impressive chops. Of course, the band is still largely hidden from the TV audience, relegated to commercial breaks as all hell breaks loose in costume and makeup.
Because the band is all masked, it’s hard to tell by her expression if she’s enjoying herself any more than she seemed to in Jon Batiste‘s troupe. It may be a course of vaccinations or three before we see if she still puts the mad in Maddie.
Nice to see her back, though.
