Lady Gaga, Sonic Youth, RZA Join Yoko Ono for Concerts Honoring John Lennon

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Lady Gaga, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, Perry Farrell and the RZA were among the artists who joined Yoko Ono at her all-star "We Are Plastic Ono Band" concerts at Los Angeles' Orpheum Theatre this weekend. The concerts were part of a weeklong celebration leading up to what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, on October 9th. Gaga performed with the Plastic Ono Band for three songs: She and Ono did a duet of Ono's "The Sun is Down!" off Ono's recent album, Between My Head and the Sky, then the 1992 track "It's Been Very Hard," with Gaga rocking out on piano. Gaga and the rest of the night's participants — including Sean Lennon, Harper Simon, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mike Watt and guitarist Nils Cline — joined together for a sing-along of the Lennon classic "Give Peace a Chance."

Photos: We Are Plastic Ono Band with Yoko Ono, Lady Gaga, Iggy Pop and more

Gaga, who wore a see-through cat suit encrusted with crystals, updated the lyrics of "Give Peace a Chance" when it was her turn to solo, addressing her recent role in the fight to get "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repealed by singing "Everybody's talking about that defense bill, don't ask don't tell, every person's sanctuary, gays in the military." Other highlights from the Orpheum shows: RZA's take on Ono's "Greenfield Morning I Pushed an Empty Baby Carriage All Over the City" and Iggy Pop's high-powered performance.

Related Lennon's Birthday Marked with Movies, Reissues, More

In February, Ono hosted another Plastic Ono all-star bash at Brooklyn's Academy of Music, inviting Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Bette Midler, Gene Ween and Gordon and Moore from Sonic Youth.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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