 | | Elbow's Pete and Jupp muscle in to help! |
Already confirmed to appear at the show are Badly Drawn Boy, Elbow, I Am Kloot, Duritti Column and Goldblade, who's frontman John Robb has masterminded the whole event. Several other artists about to be announced, so keep an eye out for updates to the bill on this page. We caught up with John Robb to get more details and find out why he'd decided to organise the event. We've all been moved by the Tsunami disaster. What made you take it a step further and organise an event? "The disaster was overwhelming and at first it made you feel really powerless. It made you wonder what you could do. And the obvious response as a musician was to organise an event, get everybody together and attempt to raise a bigger pile of money than you could on your own.  | | Goldblade's John Robb |
A quick couple of phone calls to local band manager and mate Gary McClarnan and we got the ball rolling together - we had the Apollo, a PA and lights all for free and a platform together to raise the money. The bands have been totally cool. The main worry was who would play but this being Manchester, the bands were quick to come on board, there is so little ego involved in the scene up here and people really wanted to help." How did you decide who to ask to perform? "Just got the old phone book out and rang everyone one I could think of. The bigger the band, the better. The bands that can’t do it are out of town on that weekend. The bands that could do it are here... it was as simple as that!" Are there any surprises planned? | "We realise that, in the scheme of things, a million quid can’t do everything but it can really help on a practical level." | | John Robb on the Manchester Million campaign |
"Every day there are more additions to the bill, but the bill is already really strong. The event will be a proper Manchester night out, a celebration of the scene with some of the local favourites getting up and playing a few songs each. As ever the audience will be the star of the show as well – after all they are the ones who are putting their money into the pot! It will be a really good social and special event." The event is part of the Manchester Million campaign, how long do you think it will take to raise that million? "With all the other events that have started to come on board since we got the Apollo gig off the ground, I reckon it won’t take that long to raise a million. We realise that, in the scheme of things, a million quid can’t do everything but it can really help on a practical level - at least we all did something and that’s from the people who organised all the events to the people that paid to get in... It proves that the people of Manchester care about countries that a lot of people don't know much about! It’s all we can all do in the face of this staggering disaster. We just want to make a difference no matter how small." | 
