Friday night and the big show of the evening is taking place at the ACC. Billy Talent, Rise Against and Moneen are playing a huge show to thousands of fans. But what a lot of these fans probably don't know, is that there is an equally important show taking place a few blocks away.

And it involves the same bands, and a great cause.

Hosted by Skate4Cancer, the official after party to the show kicked off around 10 PM at the Funhaus. The party, serving double-duty also as a cancer research fund raiser, saw DJ sets by members of bands like Silverstein and Moneen, and a performance by Cities in Dust.

I managed to catch up with Rob Dyer, founder of Skate4Cancer, to ask him how about the foundation and who he scored such a great line up of bands to take part.

"Skate4Cancer started with me and my friends skating from Los Angeles to Toronto." He explains. "It took about 5 months, and the group has just evolved from there." "Its one thing to raise money, but its another to hopefully change someone's lifestyle. That's more effective than any dollar amount."

Its unusual to see a group of dedicated individuals looking to skateboarding, typically seen as one of the last groups of people you'd think would be down for a cause, as a conduit to changing lives and ending cancer. "It puts a spin on something that's been given a bad image. Skateboarding is seen as something controversial in society at large, but this goes to show you that cancer affects everybody."

"We do these fund raisers about once and month. This time the bands actually approached us, and we were so overwhelmed!" Dryer admits. One of the previous show was with Dallas Green, otherwise known as City and Colour. "We were able to raise over $10,000 that night, and it was amazing to see a guy like Dallas get so involved".

It was amazing to see all the bands that night so dedicated to a cause. You should be too. The next fund raiser goes down as Rob's birthday on Feb. 16th at the El Mocambo.