‘SNL 40’: Kanye plays new song ‘Wolves,’ is razzed for stage-crashing

Be on guard, high school theater productions, minor league baseball games and any other location with a microphone and an audience: Kanye West is going to find his way onto your stage.

West was the willing and good-humored target of some ribbing during Sunday’s 40th anniversary episode of “Saturday Night Live.”

It wasn’t all performance art though: West also was one of the episode’s several prominent musical guests and debuted a new single during his live performance.

The gibes came during a reprise of the show’s “Wayne’s World” sketch, in which guests Mike Myers and Dana Carvey revisited their beloved classic-rock layabout characters. (As everyone knows, any time Kanye and Mike Myers get on live TV, fireworks happen.)

But the better setup came when Kanye performed his hit “Jesus Walks” while splayed out on his back onstage, before rising to do “Only One” and a ferocious new song, “Wolves,” with rapper Vic Mensa and the singer Sia (in her traditional outsized blonde wig).

Elsewhere in the show, music stars abounded in new and amusingly self-aware settings: Win Butler of Arcade Fire introducing Miley Cyrus, who covered Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover;” Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon recapping decades of “SNL” musical performances; and perhaps best of all, Paul Simon and Paul McCartney duetting on “I’ve Just Seen a Face.”

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