Some of Britain’s top pop names have come under fire for refusing to support this weekend’s concert for the Anti-Heroin campaign.

Over 100 star bands who had already endorsed the campaign in the press, were approached to appear at the major charity concert – but only ten agreed to help.

It is understood that Pete Townshend the organiser of the concert’s beneficiaries, the Double ‘O’ Charity, was approached to appear at the concert but is not expected to attend.

Organiser Caroline Harper said: “We had great trouble getting bands to appear. So many people had expressed their support for the campaign yet when it came to do something more than just talking, every single one of them was just too busy.

“I don’t want to name names but we asked every one of those stars who’d appeared in newspapers and on TV saying they backed us, and most of them turned us down.

“They had a variety of feeble excuses – one group said ‘one of us will be away on honeymoon’; another said they might be in the studio and one well-known band even turned round and said they didn’t believe in the campaign, because they thought kids should be able to take heroin if they wanted to,” she said.

One band even had the cheek to say it couldn’t appear because it didn’t have a drummer but was due to appear on the cancelled Tube programme with a drummer last Friday, she added.

Despite losing the potential publicity value of star pop names, the concert has won an unexpected boost from one of the country’s best loved entertainers.

Dame Vera Lynn has agreed to close the concert which features predominantly rock bands including Hawkwind, Spear of Destiny, The Armoury Show, The Comsat Angels and The Enid.

“It all came about really by accident, some of the organisers were talking about the inclusion of The Enid in the show and commenting that we had representatives from every generation, so why not ask Vera Lynn,” she said.

“We were delighted when she agreed to appear because I think she realised just how much she could help us, even if she just expressed her support for the campaign,” said Harper.

The promised appearance of Dame Vera has given a much needed boost to the concert, which the organisers hope will be self-financing.

“The funny thing is that now we’re getting some publicity because of Dame Vera, some of the groups who originally turned us down are asking to appear, and we’ve had to tell them they’re too late.

“But of course if they find they’re available for the next concert we can’t afford to turn them down. It is annoying, but although we’d like to tell them to stay away we need as much help as we can get – if we have to eat humble pie to raise money and get publicity for