After the first night of Desert Trip went by without anything out of the ordinary to report, night two brought on the rarely-seen combination of Neil Young and Paul McCartney. Both performing on Saturday night, Young came on stage for McCartney’s headlining set at the festival. The final night of the festival features Roger Waters and The Who. The festival will repeat itself next weekend, on Oct. 14-16.
The two performed a few songs, including what many consider the Beatles’ greatest song, “A Day In The Life.” Other songs played included the John Lennon-led Plastic Ono Band’s single “Give Peace A Chance” and the McCartney-sung song from The Beatles’ 1968 album The White Album.
McCartney introduced Young as a “good friend of ours… through the years.” McCartney also explained that the song is one that Neil often does, so it makes sense that the two would team up for the most fully-realized combination of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership, “A Day in the Life” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song blends into “Give Peace a Chance” in the clip below:
The two then performed a final song together, “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road.” The two rock legends joked about Young performing a solo during the song, before creeping into the bluesy song, the two singers sharing a microphone.
McCartney went on to perform 12 more songs after the Neil Young cameo, including the five song encore. One such song was the live debut of Beatles’ song “I Wanna Be Your Man,” the first song of the encore:
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