Nuno Bettencourt Viciously Attacked by Bad Chroma Key, Rihanna Music

Yeah I never woulda thunk that we’d run two stories about Rihanna in one week either, but life is strange sometimes.

So. As we’ve mentioned before, Nuno Bettencourt, guitar god extraordinaire of Extreme, makes some extra money (probably a lot of extra money) as Rihanna’s touring guitarist. And a few weeks ago, he appeared on Saturday Night Live in that capacity. And the ensuing performance of the chanteuse’s song “Diamonds” is inadvertently hilarious, and sad, for two reasons:

1. The song clearly requires so little of Nuno’s immense talents, and he is basically as low in the mix as he could be while still technically audible to human ears… and yet, he is rocking so very hard. As Vince put it, “Bless his heart.”
2. Seriously, who the fucking fuck made the choice to utilize that chroma key? While I appreciate the accidental metaphor of making Nuno as invisible visually as he is aurally,  It gives the whole thing the air of a public access television show. In the ’90s.

On a semi-related note, I’d just like to point out that it’s incredible that Rihanna has actual invisible back-up singers to do all the additional vocals for her. Where are all those other voices coming from? It’s magic!!!