Punch Brothers will be the musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman this Thursday Friday night (11/4) (11/4). Steve Martin will also be a guest tomorrow, and will use the occasion to make the official presentation of the inaugural Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass to Puncher Noam Pikelny.
This prize, which includes a $50,000 honorarium, was first announced in September, but Martin has reserved the official presentation until this moment to give greater impact to the award.
Punch Brothers are on the final leg of their fall tour, which includes two shows this weekend supporting the Dave Matthews Band in Albany and Philadelphia.
In an interview with Bluegrass Today in late September, Noam wasn’t sure which song they would feature on TV, but suggested that Rye Whiskey (from their current Antifogmatic CD) was a likely candidate.
The Letterman show airs at 11:35 (ET/PT), and the musical guests generally close the show. Full episode videos are posted on the Late Show web site within a few days of each airing, where they remain for a week.
UPDATE 5:00 p.m. – We just got a note from Steve saying that their appearance on Letterman has been bumped to Friday to make room for one of the rescued Chilean miners. He quoted Noam’s response as “we got the shaft.”
Everybody’s a comedian…
