Turnstile were booked to play Oklahoma City on Saturday 3 October. The band moved the show to Monday. The Saturday went to Saturday Night Live.
It was the Baltimore band’s first appearance on the programme, and the first time a hardcore band had played Saturday Night Live since Fear in 1981, according to Billboard. Turnstile played three songs from their album Never Enough on the episode hosted by Dakota Johnson, then went straight back on the road.
One Date Moved, One Night in Studio 8H
The schedule around the booking was tight. Turnstile played Austin City Limits on the Friday night, a set Consequence described as muddy. On Saturday they were in Studio 8H in New York.
The Oklahoma City date had to give. Blunt reports that the show was originally due on 3 October and was moved to Monday 5 October to make room for the television appearance.
It is a small change on paper, and nobody lost a show: the Oklahoma City date moved rather than being cancelled. It also shows how much the booking mattered to the band.
Two Slots and Three Songs
Turnstile appeared twice during the episode. They used the first slot for “Birds”, the song that won Best Metal Performance at the 68th Grammy Awards in February.
Drummer Daniel Fang opened it with a solo, Consequence noted. Frontman Brendan Yates brought his signature full-throttle presence to the stage, according to The Banner in Baltimore.
The second slot was a medley of “I Care” and “Dull”. Consequence reports that it was staged in front of a wall of phones, with a substantial light show behind the band. Fitting two songs into one television slot is its own constraint, and a medley is the practical answer.
Blunt’s verdict was that the band did not sand anything down for television. “Birds” arrived with the intensity of one of their own shows, and the second slot gave the studio audience a compressed version of the current set.
The Fear Precedent
The 45-year gap has a cause. Fear played the programme in 1981, brought on by John Belushi, who had recently left the cast and was a fan of the band, according to Consequence.
The studio audience was full of slam dancers, among them Ian MacKaye and Harley Flanagan, as well as Belushi himself. Fear’s four-song set caused $20,000 worth of damage at NBC’s studios in Rockefeller Center, and the programme kept its distance from hardcore for four decades.
Fear were not the only band to fall out with the show. The Replacements were banned after a drunken performance in 1986. Elvis Costello, booked in 1977 as a replacement for the Sex Pistols, stopped one song a few bars in and played “Radio, Radio” instead, against the wishes of his label and of Lorne Michaels. He was not invited back until 1989.
The promotion for Turnstile’s episode played on that history. The band joked in a promo about not trashing the studio, and cast member Ben Marshall pointed out that it had been 45 years since a hardcore band had played the show. Johnson joked that she was ready to start a wall of death for them, Billboard reported. Consequence notes that, as far as it knows, the band kept their promise about the studio.
The Record That Got Them on the Bill
Never Enough, released in June 2025, is Turnstile’s fourth album and the follow-up to Glow On from 2021. It debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and topped the Top Hard Rock Albums chart, and its title track became the band’s first number one on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.
The album brought the band five Grammy nominations. According to Billboard, that made Turnstile the first band nominated across the rock, alternative and metal fields at a single ceremony. They won two: Best Rock Album for Never Enough and Best Metal Performance for “Birds”.
The band wrote all 14 songs on the album, Rolling Stone notes. Yates has described the title track as an idea that had existed in his head for a long time, about the feeling of love always seeming to fall short and of constantly chasing something. Once that song found its form, he said, the band knew it was leading the way for the record.
That is the context for the booking. Turnstile arrived at Studio 8H with chart positions, two Grammys and a song that won in the metal field. The band is a five-piece, Billboard notes, and Yates, Fang, Franz Lyons, Pat McCrory and Meg Mills posed together in the Grammy press room in February, according to Music Times.
A Year on the Road and an Album Reworked
The band has spent much of the year touring Europe, The Banner notes, and still found time to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Baltimore Orioles game in July.
In August Turnstile released Never Enough: Versions, a 22-track reworking of the album, according to Blunt. Billboard lists contributions from Elton John, Hayley Williams, Julien Baker, Four Tet, Blood Orange, Faye Webster and Alex G among others. The Banner adds that Baltimore musicians, including Nourished by Time and Brandon Woody, are also on it.
The local names matter. Turnstile came up in Baltimore’s hardcore scene, and The Banner framed the night in those terms: Baltimore hardcore, live from New York. As the paper put it, there are probably not many bigger stages left for a band from that scene.
The Episode and the Band’s Television Run
Johnson was hosting for the third time, a day after the theatrical release of her film Verity, according to Billboard. The episode also included a cameo from Taylor Swift, who brought Johnson a cake for her birthday, Consequence reported, so the band shared the studio with one of the biggest names in pop for the night.
The booking was announced on 9 September as part of the first wave of guests for the programme’s 52nd season, according to Music Times. The season opened on 26 September with host Jalen Brunson and musical guest KATSEYE, and Turnstile followed a week later.
Late-night television is not new to the band. Turnstile made its television debut on Late Night With Seth Meyers on 15 December 2021, playing “Mystery” and “T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection)” from Glow On, and about three months later played a Glow On medley on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Music Times reports. Saturday Night Live is the biggest room in that run so far.
After Turnstile and KATSEYE, Rosalía is booked for 10 October alongside host Shane Gillis, and Gracie Abrams for 31 October, Billboard reports. Against that run of pop guests, a hardcore band from Baltimore stands out.
The Rest of the Run
The tour picks up in Oklahoma City on 5 October, followed by Lawrence, Kansas, on 6 October and St Louis on 7 October. The band returns to Austin City Limits on 9 October, plays FORM Arcosanti in Arizona on 11 October, then Ventura on 14 October and Las Vegas on 15 October before closing the run in Santa Ana on 18 October, according to Consequence’s listing. Two nights at Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles follow on 14 and 15 November. Each of the October shows has a different line-up of support acts, and four European dates are already set for next June in Germany, Denmark and Norway, Rolling Stone reports.
“Turnstile gave up one tour date for two slots on network television and did not change a thing about how they play to fit the room, which is the whole case for the band in one weekend,” said the BestRock.News curator team.
For a smaller-scale example of a room shaping a record, read what a garden shed does to a record. Video of Turnstile’s Saturday Night Live performances has been shared online, including on YouTube.
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