Conan O'Brien
Getty ImagesA few years in the making.
The gang's back together.
Conan O'Brien reunited with former bandleader Max Weinberg for the first time since making the move from NBC to TBS on Tuesday's episode of Conan, when Weinberg sat in as the drummer after James Wormworth suddenly disappeared.
"What do you mean he wandered off?" O'Brien asked the remaining members of the band, before cutting to a pre-taped segment of Wormworth falling down an abandoned mine. (All fake of course.) When O'Brien exclaimed that they needed a drummer "now!" the camera cut to O'Brien's friend, who just happened to be sitting in the audience with a pair of drumsticks ready to take the helm.
"I'll play!" Weinberg said, before racing down to the stage to embrace O'Brien in a hug. It's as if no time has passed.
Weinberg led O'Brien's in-house band since the start of Late Night With Conan O'Brien in 1993 and moved to Los Angeles for a brief Tonight Show run that ended in early 2010. Based on the East Coast, Weinberg — drummer for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band — did not return for Conan. Longtime O'Brien band member Jimmy Vivino currently leads the Basic Cable Band.
During O'Brien's Legally Prohibited From Being Funny Tour in between his NBC and TBS gigs, Weinberg appeared in one show.