The Who and former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft will head a stellar line up of acts due to play the one-off Killing Cancer charity concert which will be held in London early next year.
Legendary guitarist Jeff Beck and Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry have also been announced for the show which has been organised by Robert Plant‘s manager Bill Curbishley in conjunction with promoter Harvey Goldsmith. The gig is being held to raise money for pancreatic and throat cancer PDT trials, as well as to raise the profile of the good cause.
“Robert and I had lived through the final months and days of close friends battling with cancer,” remarked Curbishley when announcing the event. “But also fighting to overcome the effects of their treatments. Only later we discovered that PDT could perhaps have saved their lives and certainly given them some dignity in their final weeks.”
Co-producer Goldsmith also spoke of his own personal loss and his hopes for the new treatment. “I lost my mother to cancer in the past 12 months,” he explained. “I saw how she struggled but finally lost the fight to beat her cancer. People often say that the treatment is worse than the cancer. In the PDT trial this concert is funding, we have hope and expectation that we can dramatically improve the survival odds for patients.”
The event will take place at London’s Hammersmith Apollo on January 13th. Pre-sale tickets go on sale exclusively from the Oxford Street HMV on Tuesday, November 16th. General ticket sales will follow from November 19th.