Arcade Fire Playing ‘SNL’ With Host Benedict Cumberbatch In May – Billboard

It’s been a big weekend for Arcade Fire. Not only did the Canadian indie rock stalwarts play a surprise set at Coachella 2022 on Friday (April 15), but during Lizzo’s episode of Saturday Night Live (April 16) where she hosted and served as the musical guest, it was revealed that Win Butler and Co. will return to SNL for their fifth appearance on May 7.

The episode also boasts Benedict Cumberbatch, who will be hosting SNL for the second time. He’s promoting the upcoming Sam Raimi-directed Marvel film Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, which is out the same weekend he hosts SNL. Arcade Fire’s new album, WE, drops May 6 via Columbia.

Arcade Fire first appeared on SNL in 2007 on a Rainn Wilson-hosted episode. In 2010, the year they released their Grammy album of the year winner The Suburbs, AF played on a Scarlet Johansson-hosted episode. In 2013, they returned to 30 Rock with Tina Fey, and in 2018 they joined Bill Hader. They also played the SNL stage in 2012, serving as Mick Jagger’s backing band on a few Rolling Stones classics (so arguably you could call this their sixth time on the show, though it’s their fifth proper time as the musical guest). And even when Arcade Fire isn’t on SNL, their presence is still felt – in a 2016 pre-election sketch, Alec Baldwin as Trump and Kate McKinnon as Clinton ran around Times Square to the strains of the band’s classic “Wake Up.”

Ahead of the release of the band’s sixth album, Will Butler – the multi-instrumentalist younger brother of band leader Win Butler – announced he was leaving the group he’d been a part of since 2003. But in his Twitter announcement, he assured people there were no hard feelings: “The band are still my friends and family.”