A world first from legendary photographer Mick Rock changes the way people view concerts around the globe.

At the historic Manchester v Cancer concert which saw dozens of Mancunian heroes take to the stage together for the first time ever, the 10,000 fans could download live backstage images direct to their mobiles.

Thousands of pounds were raised through texting, adding to the £150,000 made on the night for cancer research at Christie Hospital - Europe's largest cancer treatment and research centre.

Staged by Great Northern Productions, the new company set up by ex-Smiths bassist Andy Rourke, the money will help fund a Gene Therapy Research Centre backed by Professor Robert Hawkins, which aims to investigate alternatives to chemotherapy.

New Order, Doves, Elbow, Johnny Marr & The Healers, Nine Black Alps, 808 State, Shaun Ryder and more played at the concert and they were all photographed backstage by Mick Rock.

He captured their performances using the cutting-edge Nikon D2X digital camera and then sent the images via a wireless network to the vision mixing console in the MEN Arena. Images were then edited on the fly and sent as content feed to the lighting production crew who interpolated the stills in the video and lighting mix for the performances.

The audience took part in the action by texting ROCK to a shortcode, which then generated a WAP push text message to handsets linking directly to an online thumbnail gallery with pictures of each artist.