The Onion A.V. Club | William ShatnerWow! This coincidence freaks me out. Last night I was a mod backup singer for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by William Shatner at Transperformance (a sort of variety show; this year's theme was Canada) and here's this interview with him. The performance went great, by the way. Dennis was Shatner, and he had the perfect a-little-too-tight mustard yellow shirt. During the choruses, when me and D's girlfriend sang and did arm movements, a low-rent Star Trek monster ran on stage and D fought him ST-style. I didn't get to watch it but it was taped. I think we did well... The kids up front seemed a little confused but interested. The adults laughed their asses off. I had been pretty nervous right before we went out. There was about 1500 people there, maybe more.

Neil Young stole the show, though. P had gotten a wig that gave him perfect stringy brown locks, and he wore old jeans I had put patches on, a white shirt with a brown leather vest, a canvas bucket hat and aviator sunglasses. He looked and sounded exactly like Neil. The crowd went crazy. He was solo for his first song, the "My my, Hey Hey" song ("... rock and roll is here to stay. It's better to burn out, than to fade away, my my, hey hey." is the rest of the verse). The gals I were sitting with - me and three other girlfriends of guys on stage, plus one - couldn't get over how perfect they looked and sounded and the rest of the audience seemed to agree. Then Crazy Horse came out - Spanish for Hitchhiking in grunge garb. They did "Cinnamon Girl," which made the people near us go ballistic with joy, and "When You Dance I Can Really Love" which makes me misty, and then the capper, "Old Man" (the "old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you" song). Unbeknownst to the band, during this song the Young at Heart chorus members, all of them 70 years old and older, were slowly shuffling into place behind them for their next number ("Helpless," for which P stayed on stage as window dressing, but it was really the YAH's song). It was quite moving. When P and band were done the crowd exploded. It was fuckin' great!