Vancouver bands coming together to support Rocket Norton of PRiSM
It’s been a long few years for Rocket Norton, the former drummer for Vancouver-based PRiSM.
In 2021 he was diagnosed with rectal cancer and endured months of chemotherapy and radiation. He was given the all-clear, that the cancer was gone, but a month later it had returned. Norton was told the cancer is terminal and that he had six months left, but a new therapy option in his home province of British Columbia has him feeling hopeful.
Still, cancer is a vicious foe, with two in five Canadians hearing their own cancer diagnosis in their lifetimes.
When Norton was first diagnosed, he received a t-shirt from friend Bruce Allen, the front of which had big block letters spelling out F**K CANCER. It’s an attitude and mindset Norton has carried with him throughout his fight.
His friends are carrying it too: After news came out of his relapse, they began to assemble a benefit concert, now scheduled for October 1 at the Hard Rock Casino in Coquitlam, BC, with all proceeds going to the BC Cancer Foundation.
“This is a difficult time for me and my family, just like it is for any family that is touched by cancer,” Norton says. “I can’t thank my friends in the music industry enough for helping provide a platform where we and music fans can come together, raise money for cancer research, and collectively say F**k You to Cancer.”
Among the bands participating will be Loverboy, Chilliwack, Trooper, Streetheart, Headpins, Powder Blues Band, Nick Glider and Ray Ayotte, in addition to PRiSM and the Authentics.
While tickets to the show are almost sold out, some are still available and each ticket purchase will be eligible for a tax receipt as each purchase is a donation that benefits the BC Cancer Society and is considered a charitable donation.
More information on the concert is available at Fcancerconcert.ca.
Nick Gilder! I just bought his album from my youth last year…we used to make up dance routines to ‘Hot Child in the City’ (quite inappropriately) in elementary school. Even with my accelerated reading levels at the time and love of all things about runaways and drug-related bachannalia and all that, I still had no clue what that song was about. Such naivete.
I attended that amazing concert that Rocket put together. At the time I did not realize I had pancreatic cancer. I was told 2 days before my 53rd birthday, and 3 days before Christmas 2022. Today I have been in the hospital for two weeks, looking to start chemo within the next week or so. The only good thing is my tumor is not the death sentence kind.