William Shatner has announced his first heavy metal performance later this year, with his newly formed band The *uckers at Riot Fest in Chicago.<\/p>\n
The Star Trek actor, 95, will take to the stage at Douglass Park on September 20, after the punk rock festival spent more than a decade trying to get him to perform.<\/p>\n
Riot Fest posted that Chicago should rename a boat after Shatner so he could “captain a ship again”, referring to his role as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek.<\/p>\n
The festival also posted a video of Shatner confirming the news.<\/p>\n
He said: “Riot Fest fans, Shatner here.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been thinking about all those letters you sent me, and I decided you\u2019re such big fans of mine that I\u2019m going to debut my heavy metal record at Riot Fest and I hope you\u2019ll be there, I hope I\u2019m there.<\/p>\n
“I hope you have my rider and yes, don\u2019t forget my bowl of sauerkraut, if you please.”<\/p>\n
He posted a photo of himself brandishing a guitar to promote his performance.<\/p>\n
He wrote: “I am going to be doing a live performance of my new live heavy metal spectacle to Douglas Park in Chicago on Sunday August 20, 2026.<\/p>\n
“This is an event you definitely will be telling your grandchildren about! I hope to see you there.”<\/p>\n
Riot Fest has a history of courting celebrities to perform, and actor John Stamos made his debut with The Beach Boys in 2025.<\/p>\n
Festival founder Mike “Riot Mike” Petryshyn said: “After years of persistently, and perhaps annoyingly, writing letters to William Shatner about performing at Riot Fest, it appears that he was finally compelled.<\/p>\n
“I for one cannot wait to see Shatner get heavy. But that Shatner Rider\u2026 wasn\u2019t expecting that today.”<\/p>\n
Shatner said he was looking forward to the show.<\/p>\n
He said in a statement: “I\u2019ve always believed that music, like space, is about exploration.<\/p>\n
“Riot Fest is exactly the kind of place where anything can happen. We\u2019re bringing volume, intensity, and a few surprises. I can\u2019t wait to share this experience with the fans.”<\/p>\n
Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William Shatner has announced his first heavy metal performance later this year, with his newly formed band The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-530458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}