Avril Lavigne Lines Up Lyme Disease Livestream Benefit Show

Avril Lavigne announced a livestream benefit concert for October 24th at 8 p.m. ET, helping raise awareness and funds in the fight against Lyme disease. Full proceeds from the virtual event — described on the singer’s site as the “only chance” to see her perform in 2020 — will support the Avril Lavigne Foundation and Global Lyme Alliance.

Tickets, along with merch bundles and VIP soundcheck passes, are now on sale.

“I’m so excited for fans and friends from all over the world to join me and my very special guests for #FightLyme, which will benefit the Lyme community,” Lavigne said in a statement. “It’s going to be an evening to remember full of hope, great music and exciting surprises!” 

Lavigne has battled Lyme herself: She revealed her diagnosis in 2015, noting that she contracted the disease from a tick bite the previous spring; in a January 2020 Instagram post shouting out Justin Bieber, who’d announced his own diagnosis, she wrote, “For the better part of two years, I was really sick and fighting for my life.”

“The bad days still come and go,” she continued, adding that writing her sixth LP, 2019’s Head Above Water, helped her “get through the worst of it.”

The singer’s foundation assists people with Lyme, serious illnesses or disabilities — providing prevention resources, funding treatment grants and advancing scientific research. Global Lyme Alliance funds research, offers awareness programs and supports patients and caregivers.

In April, Lavigne joined a crew of fellow Canadian artists — including Bieber, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Bryan Adams, Michael Bublé, Sarah McLachlan and Buffy Sainte-Marie — to cover Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” during the television special and livestream Stronger Together, Tous Ensemble, which raised money for Food Banks Canada amid the COVID-19 pandemic.