Hayley Williams Brought Out Zedd For Her First Live Performance Of “Stay The Night” In 12 Years

Hayley Williams is finally busting out her non-Paramore hits at her solo shows. Right now, she's on the tour dubbed the Hayley Williams Show. At a New York show last month, she sang her smash 2010 B.o.B. collab "Airplanes" for the first time since the song was new, with tourmate Rico Nasty doing B.o.B.'s parts. On Monday night in Los Angeles, Williams brought back another oldie: "Stay The Night," her 2012 track with German EDM hitmaker Zedd. She also brought out Zedd himself.

When Williams announced her current tour, she fueled speculation that she might return to some of those old pop-crossover moments. A Forest Hills Stadium social-media post teased the lyrics from "Airplanes," while one outside the Hollywood Bowl had lyrics from "Stay The Night." Williams' Hollywood Bowl show was last night. She did "Airplanes" with Rico Nasty again. Then, during her encores, Williams told the crowd, "I'd like to bring an old friend up here. His name is Anton. Some of you might know him as Zedd."

"Stay The Night" was a pretty big hit around the world when it came out in 2013 — #18 in the US, #2 in the UK. As far as we can tell, the last time that Williams performed the song was when she joined Zedd at the LA radio-station concert Wango Tango in 2014. (They'd performed it live together for the first time at the MTV Upfronts the previous month.) At the Hollywood Bowl, Zedd sat at Williams piano and pounded out the melody. There were no ramp-ups or bass drops, but Williams still belted the song with operatic force.

These days, Hayley Williams is very busy. In the past few days, week or so, for instance, she has covered mark william lewis with her side project Power Snatch, reaffirmed her "Fuck ICE" stance, and signed on to headline next year's Primavera, all while touring hard and grappling with the death of her ex-husband Chad Gilbert. She seems pretty alienated from the version of pop stardom that she took on for much of her life, and it's cool to see her engage with and embrace aspects of that history. Below, watch fan footage of the performance and the original "Stay The Night" video.