Robert Plant and Eddie Vedder joined Roger Daltrey onstage Sunday for a rendition of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” at London’s Royal Albert Hall, providing a rousing finale to the annual Teenage Cancer Trust benefit.
You can watch video of the performance below.
Sunday’s “Ovation” concert marked the end of the weeklong musical festivities and the end of Daltrey’s 24-year tenure as curator of the Teenage Cancer Trust. This year’s lineup featured Plant (with Saving Grace), Vedder, Squeeze, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and the Who, among others. Pete Townshend was originally scheduled to perform at “Ovation” but instead had to head to New York to promote the Broadway reopening of Tommy. (Daltrey opened his set with a cover of Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door.”)
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At the end of the “Baba O’Riley” performance — which also featured singer-songwriter Glen Hansard and Stereophonics lead singer Kelly Jones — Daltrey saluted the “unsung heroes” of the event and talked about the importance of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
“I’m not going away from the Teenage Cancer Trust,” he announced. “I’ve completed the job I set out to do. We’re gonna get curators to do a year rather than try and do another 20 years. Talk about nerve-racking. But I’ve got other work to do for the charity that is more important, because we live in a day where our NHS [National Health Service], everyone knows, is very questionable — even surviving. We are part of that service, though we are a charity. … If the NHS goes down, I want to make sure this charity doesn’t go down with it.”
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Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
