Fallon brings music, laughs to Matthews

Over the course of Jimmy Fallon’s hour-long routine at Matthews Arena, the NBC “Late Night” host and “Saturday Night Live” alumnus referred to a music industry major as “having a good shot at being homeless” and asked someone to get American Sign Language interpreter a Gatorade. Fallon performed for Northeastern students and their families Saturday during University’s Parent and Family Weekend.
Kicking things off with an acoustic performance of his charity song “Car Wash for Peace” – from which proceeds went to Fisher House, a group that provides housing for veterans and military families – with guitar in hand, Fallon immediately got the audience into his act.
Decked out in a Northeastern sweatshirt, jeans and work boots, Fallon quickly plugged his talk show and went on to make fun of some of the commercials that run during the show’s late time slot, like prescription drug ads with long legal disclaimers.
“Two-thirds of the commercial talks about the side effects, but we don’t care because us Americans gotta take our pills,” he quipped.
Fallon borrowed material from his talk show including the popular segment “Thank you notes,” in which he writes thank-yous about various people or things that are in the news or annoy him.
“Thank you dad for the text message you sent last night after finally learning to text. Thanks also for the 27 blanks text messages that followed,” he said.
A large amount of his routine involved music, including a segment in which he did impressions of artists singing about “being green” to some of their more popular hits, like Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” and Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.”
“They tryin’a make me buy a Prius but I said no, no, no,” Fallon sang in his interpretation of Winehouse’s distinct voice.
One of the more humorous parts of the night came when Fallon engaged in audience interaction with a collection of “cougars” sitting in the front row. When he asked how long one woman’s child had been going to Northeastern and she said “five years,” he used the answer as an easy punch line.
“Five years? I wouldn’t show up to my kid’s parents’ weekend if he was still here after five years,” he said.
An unidentified female shouted out from the darkened arena “It’s a five-year school,” to which Fallon said “There’s a communications major right there!”
“I didn’t have very high expectations going into the show because I think Jimmy’s [talk] show is kind of weird, but I thought he did a great job,” said Matthew Deegan, a junior political science major.
Fallon tried to bridge the gap between the audience members’ ages, as he drew on impressions of John Travolta in “Grease” and talked about the awkwardness of wedding receptions to connect with parents.
Judging by audience response, the most popular portions of Fallon’s act came in which he sang snippets of select ’80s hits to the instrumental of MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” and did impressions of comedians that had performed at Northeastern in the past including Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock.
Some of his more spot-on impressions were Robin Williams and Adam Sandler, which many remember from Fallon’s days on “SNL,” specifically the popular celebrity Jeopardy sketches.
Fallon also drew on his time in the series for a skit called “The Barry Gibb Talk Show” in which he asked an audience volunteer named Amy, who was wearing a green “staff” shirt, to join him onstage. Once there, she was instructed to do an interpretive dance while he sang the sketch’s theme song. After asking Amy a few questions, Fallon used her answers to mock her in song for not having a boyfriend and being “lonely” among other things.
“That’s right, just hang your head in shame,” he told her as she returned to her seat to lots of laughter.
Middler music industry major Caroline Farhat said Fallon’s impression of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” host Ty Pennington was one of the highlights in her eyes.
“I liked how he brought the audience into his act,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if it was pre-planned since both audience members he chose were wearing ‘staff’ shirts.”
Before Fallon took to the stage, fellow comedian and friend Wayne Federman (“Funny People,” “Step Brothers”) warmed up the crowd with jokes ranging from Boston drivers to fast food and 99 cent stores.
Despite receiving a tepid response at the beginning, Federman got more laughs as his act went along, especially when he played a few original compositions on the keyboard and took shots at Pink Floyd and KISS concerts.
The event was co-sponsored by the Council for University Programs (CUP), the Student Government Association (SGA), the Office of Parent and Family Programs and the Office of Student Affairs.
The groups were responsible for bringing Jon Stewart to perform for Parents and Family Weekend last year.
Kat Sprague, president of CUP, said this year the organization picked Fallon to headline the show because they wanted to try something new in getting students and their families excited.
“We wanted someone who could capture a wide range of audience,” she said. “Someone who was appropriate and suitable for a Parents Weekend event with a good ability to appeal to a very wide demographic.”
CUP’s next event is “HallowEEK,” a series of Halloween-themed events that is taking place this week.