(Credits: Far Out / Comedy Central / Ralph Arvesen)
Mon 4 August 2025 2:00, UK
Imagine the scene. It’s 2016, maybe 2017. The glory days of indie are somewhat still rolling on, but you’re starting to wonder if, actually, the 2012 to 2014 period was its peak. You’re wondering all of this at a Mac DeMarco gig while he plays the hits from that era, but then, what? Who’s that on the guitar? Is that… Nathan Fielder?
You think to yourself, wait a second. Am I being filmed? This was 2016, after all. For the past three years, Nathan Fielder has been messing with the perception of everything as his TV show, Nathan For You, is now three seasons deep into its meta comedy. In the show, people hire Nathan to help with a problem or a dilemma, being dragged along with his increasingly tedious and overly complex attempt to fix things.
Did Mac DeMarco have an issue? Is an episode of the upcoming season going to be Nathan Fielder attempting to solve the issue of the fading excitement surrounding slacker rock? Or helping DeMarco to rebrand as his reign on Tumblr comes to an end with the changing aesthetic times.
You’re there, in the crowd watching Fielder play ‘Cooking Up Something Good’, frantically looking around for a camera to try and see if all of this is merely a scene for a TV show in which the comedian needs to first better understand DeMarco in order to help him, or to know how it feels to be a guitarist for some other elaborate plot.
But it wasn’t for a TV show; no one really knows what it was for. All we know is that for a while, Nathan Fielder would routinely appear on stage with DeMarco, briefly making their friendship professional when the comedian joined the band.
(Credits: Far Out / Comedy Central)
It started in 2016 at FYF Fest in Los Angeles, where Fielder seemed to be playing a very different character than the one he usually embodies on TV. Casting off the awkward persona, he was drinking beer, spitting it at the crowd, and then flipping them off: something very un-Nathan-like. However, as the appearances kept going, he seemed to settle back into himself, as he was spotted neurotically checking his phone mid-set, or even mid-song, on stage.
Quickly, another confusing question appeared, joining the two prior ones of ‘Is that Nathan Fielder?’ and ‘Why is Nathan Fielder swearing at me?’. By 2017, after a bunch of repeat appearances from the comedian, he joined DeMarco on the Conan O’Brien show to play ‘On The Level’, but while at every other performance he’d genuinely seemed to be playing the guitar, this time he was clearly faking it, messing with the capo and tuning up midway. And so another question launched – ‘Was he ever playing guitar or was this all a bit?’
The story of all questions and no answers continues as we flash forward to 2019 at DeMarco’s show at the Greek Theatre. Once again, Fielder was there, all dressed up and acting like he was just one of the guys in the band, but never once was his guitar plugged in. At the end of that show, the pair finished with a tender kiss. Yes, Nathan Fielder leaned down to plant one on Mac DeMarco, who was on his knees waiting, all while the comedian was still pretending to play.
I’ve done all the research on this. I’ve written this article, I’ve watched the footage, I’ve basically studied it at this point, and still, I cannot tell you what the fuck was going on. Given that none of this ever led into one of Fielder’s TV shows, and that neither of them ever spoke about it, it’s all just a bunch of question marks. But then let me present another dream scenario.
Given that Fielder had been secretly learning to fly a plane for two and a half years in order to make The Rehearsal season two, perhaps what’s waiting for the world in season three is a year-in-the-making study of how to become an indie rocker. We’re about to witness a Nathan Fielder takeover of the music industry. Everybody, strap in.
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