Read This: Think, for a minute, of being at this show... UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!

VeddernarianVeddernarian Posts: 1,924
edited May 2006 in Other Music
ROCK CRUSADE
by NIGEL PAULEY

11 May 2006
Daily Star
19
English

Legends raise £1.9m in one night

A SUPERGROUP featuring a collection of rock legends has raised a staggering £1.9million from a single charity gig.

The band - featuring the talents of among others Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, The Who's Roger Daltrey and Lulu - plays under the name RD Crusaders.

They performed, with Express Newspapers' proprietor Richard Desmond on drums, to raise money for a children's hospital.

The concert, at the historic Old Billingsgate Fish Market in central London on Tuesday, was the fourth time the RD Crusaders have performed together.

The band, the brainchild of Mr Daltrey and Mr Desmond, was first unleashed at a gig at Ronnie Scott's in October 2003 and since then has raised £1.5million for charity.

Now that figure has soared to £3.4million after this week's concert, attended by leading figures from business, politics and showbiz including Mohamed Al Fayed, Bernie Ecclestone, Kate Price, Sadie Frost and Kevin Spacey.

A charity auction energetically conducted by Harry Dalmeny, chairman of Sotheby's International, raised £900,000 of the total.

Lots included lunch with X Factor judge Simon Cowell in Los Angeles, which went for £50,000, tickets for the first day of the England v Pakistan Test Match at Lords in the company of Mike Gatting, which went for £30,000, and a Gibson Les Paul guitar signed by all the RD Crusaders, which went for £26,000.

The money raised this year is being donated to the Evelina Children's Hospital Appeal.

Among the bidders were Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, businessman Michael Platt, and Stanley Fink, the Chairman of the Evelina Children's Hospital Appeal.

Other lots included the football boots worn by the winning Chelsea team, all individually autographed, and lunch with Conservative party leader David Cameron.

The band - which also featured Emerson Lake And Palmer's Greg Lake, Argent star Russ Ballard, blues musician Zoot Money, guitarist Simon Townshend, Steve Smith, sax player Nick Newall, and backing singers Nikki Lambourne, Steve Balsamo and Margo Buchanan - tore through a series of classic songs.

"This has to be the most expensive pub band in the world, " Robert Plant joked to the audience.

The songs included Lulu performing Every Breath You Take and Shout, Roger Daltrey belting out The Who classics The Kids Are Alright and Pinball Wizard, Greg Lake performing ELP ballad Lucky Man, and Robert Plant singing the standards Shakin' All Over and Hoochie Coochie Man.

"These are the people I have admired from my earliest youth when I played the drums and started out in business with music magazines, " Mr Desmond said before the gig.

"Now I am living a dream at the same time as giving something back to charity. Roger and I chose The Evelina Children's Hospital Appeal as it does such an amazing job supporting the Evelina Children's Hospital."

The first stand-alone children's hospital to be built in London for more than a century, Evelina treats more than 50,000 children every year in its specially designed, childfriendly environment where every detail has been crafted with children and families in mind.

The original idea for the gigs was hatched when Roger Daltrey and Mr Desmond were having lunch in 2003.

Mr Daltrey recalled: "We were talking about ways we could raise money for charity and I said to Richard that I would sing in any band that he put together.

"He went away and the names he came back with were fantastic."

Ten per cent of the money raised last night will go to another charity called Camp Simcha, which exists to improve the quality of life for children with cancer and other lifethreatening illnesses.
Up here so high I start to shake, Up here so high the sky I scrape, I've no fear but for falling down, So look out below I am falling now, Falling down,...not staying down, Could’ve held me up, rather tear me down, Drown in the river
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Comments

  • rhinomagicrhinomagic Posts: 2,549
    That's amazing.

    Supergroups don't always live up to their hype, though. It takes a special combination and it seems like RD's may have some of that.

    .
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