08/19/2026
Drs. Heather Sparling and Chris McDonald have a chapter, "Music and Disasters: Concerts as Commemorative Events," about benefit concerts after Nova Scotia mining disasters in a new book! We would love to see you at the virtual book launch in October! Details below.
Fund raising rock concerts have been a major feature of the music scene since the first recognized event, the Concert for Bangladesh, was organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar in 1971. Since then, they have come in many guises, from small-scale local affairs to mega international extravaganzas with the causes they support including national and international disaster relief as well as more political objectives.
Rock for Change explores the role benefit concerts, tours, and recordings have had in mobilizing popular music and musicians to raise money or awareness to combat social problems, both human and natural. It considers the benefit concert over thirteen wide-ranging chapters, including major events such as the Concert for Bangladesh, Live Aid, and the Concert for New York; national examples such as Scottish concerts for overseas aid, Neil and Pegi Young's Bridge School benefits in California, mining disasters in Canada and political causes like Rock Against Racism and Red Wedge in the UK and punk events in Washington DC.
There will be a book launch (in person and online) on Wednesday 7 October 2026 at Bayes Business School, 33 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1AG, followed by a drinks reception.
The co-editors and several of the contributors will talk about the book and the guest speaker will be Stephen Greene CBE, CEO of the international pro-social media company Rockcorps.
If you would like to attend (either in person or online) please follow the link below.
https://cityunilondon.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_afcbx49WrECZS2q
