The Who, Jeff Beck, Richard Ashcroft & Debbie Harry Killing Cancer
Monday, November 15, 2010 | By Anonymous
They will take centre stage at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo on Thursday 13th January 2011, raising money for the Killing Cancer charity that funds research into a little-known therapy that destroys cancer cells with a single treatment - without patients suffering the emotional and physical trauma of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Rock pioneers The Who will perform on the same bill as guitar icon Jeff Beck, The Verve's Richard Ashcroft, and Blondie legend Debbie Harry.
Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) works by light combining with a drug that switches off the oxygen reaching the target cells and is a fraction of the cost of current cancer treatments.
Despite this, PDT is rarely offered to patients and the gig will highlight the availability of this cutting edge therapy.
The idea for the concert came from legendary promoter Harvey Goldsmith and Bill Curbishley, manager of The Who and Robert Plant.
"Robert and I had lived through the final months and days of close friends battling with cancer," says Bill Curbishley, "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."
Concert impresario, Harvey Goldsmith, says that of all his charity projects, this one for Killing Cancer has a special significance. "I lost my mother to cancer in the past 12 months. 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.
"I have seen how PDT is a much more gentle treatment and the funds Bill, myself and some great friends in the business have already pledged, is giving pancreatic cancer patients real hope. With this cancer there is currently only a 3% chance of survival.
"In the PDT trial this concert is funding, we have hope and expectation that we can dramatically improve the survival odds for patients."
Harvey has a particular interest in backing the PDT trial for pancreatic cancer. His close friend Luciano Pavarotti died from the cancer in September 2007.