Stand Together – Fundraiser gig for Catfish Matt Long

*** Ticketed Event *** – To book tickets, please visit our ticketing website. www.thamessidebrewery.co.uk 

Matt Long is a multi award winning guitarist, singer and songwriter with blues rock band Catfish. He is also about to marry the love of his life in a couple of months. He has a lot to live for.

Matt has been battling bowel cancer for just under a year and despite surgery and chemo, his latest scan shows that the cancer has spread into his liver and stomach lining. His cancer team have said although there is the option of trying a different type of chemo, they don’t hold out much hope that it will cure him and is likely to at best extend his life a little.

Essentially, Matt has almost exhausted the options available on the NHS. But his family and friends aren’t ready to give up on him.

On the recommendation of his cancer team, they have sent away a sample of the tumour to the USA to be genetically sequenced which will give the maximum amount of information on its make up. This will then show the cancer team exactly what drugs to use to damage it – to either slow it down, or there is just a small chance that they may be able to kill it.

The only access to this treatment is via the private route which is going to be expensive. Just the sequencing is a little under £3k and any drugs will apparently be about £3k a month after that. The family will fund what they can, and have so far raised over £70k in a crowdfunder for a ‘fighting fund’ but this is potentially a real money pit.

Without any treatment, his cancer team have told Matt he won’t make it past the end of this year. With the access to sequencing, if it turns out to be something specific they have drugs for, he may have a 15% chance of survival. That has to be worth a shot.

In addition to the crowdfunder, there are now five benefit concerts being held across the U.K. in May and June, and we are very pleased to be one of them.

The day will have performances from many artists, including
Elles Bailey, Laurence Jones, Greg Coulson, Mike Rosse, Alice Armstrong, True Strays, Martin Abrahams Band, Demi Marriner and Thomas Heppell.

Doors will open at 12pm, gig will start at 1pm. Gig is expected to end at 10.30pm. All proceeds from the ticket sales will be going to the Matt Long Fighting Fund.

To book tickets, please visit our ticketing website. www.thamessidebrewery.co.uk  (Please note : There are no booking or processing fees for these tickets).

Special Event Fundraising T-shirts are now available from the Catfish shop. https://www.catfishband.com/shop