Fee Bird

Conan O'Brien's final Tonight Show on Friday was a fantastic hour of TV, especially from a music vantage point. I like to picture NBC genius Jeff Zucker, watching the sincere tributes by the most respected names in show-biz, sweating it out in the NBC control room saying "tear up Jay's contract - we're keeping Conan."


Kudos to friend and fellow rock-blogger Doug Donelan of Actual Monkey fame for correctly predicting that guest Neil Young would pay homage to Conan with his beautiful"Long May You Run." In his liner notes to Decade, Neil said this song is about "a car and a girl." Add "wrongly-dismissed talk show host" to the list. At the end, Neil thanked Conan for championing new music.


The Tonight Show's closing number, a Last Waltz-style version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird," featuring Will Ferrell as Ronnie Van Zant (complete with Neil Young Tonight's the Night T-shirt and cowbell) and a fake wife named Dawn who is "with child," was brililant, funny and even touching. I find Ferrell's comedy to be hit or miss, but this was definitely hit.

And the backing band, featuring Beck, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Ben Harper and Conan himself, managed to be both sincere and satirical. "Free Bird" is a cliche of the ultimate rock encore, but it's also a great song.

Of course, to NBC, Conan is anything but a Free bird - Zucker the Sucker had to pay him somewhere around $40 millionjust to leave. Maybe they should have called it "Fee Bird."

Conan's 'Freebird' Farewell - The funniest bloopers are right here

Let's take things home with the southern-fried original: here's Synyrd doing "Free Bird" on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1975. Thanks for the laughs and the tunes, Conan - see you on Fox in September.