Avril Lavigne guest judging Idol as Neil Patrick Harris calls industry judges “a weird mistake”

Avril Lavigne is going to take some time away from being irrelevant to guest judge American Idol 9 in Los Angeles, according to EW. She’ll do one day, while previously announced guest judge Katy Perry will sit in the other day.

Meanwhile, Kristin Chenoweth sat in Paula’s chair in Orlando last week, and Neil Patrick Harris judged in Dallas, after which he told EW, “I shattered dreams.” If that’s not awesome enough, he also said that he thinks having music industry guest judges is a bad idea: “I think it has been a weird mistake to have people with their own music careers going on and judging people because when they’re too critical, it affects them. They don’t want to be that honest, because they need to keep their appearance up. If you don’t have any ties to the music industry, you just love American Idol, you can sit there and do exactly what you do in your living room, which is stare at them and judge them.”