A few months back our commercial partnership manager, Ryan, was approached by Nokia as they continued their quest for unique and special venues to host their Nokia Lumia Live Sessions events in, promoting their colourful, high performance Lumia phone range whilst providing amazing entertainment for audience members lucky enough to win exclusive tickets. Their Lumia Live Sessions tour provides a platform for the best, emerging talent producing intimate shows in the most unusual spaces across the UK; old cemeteries, cage fighting cages and royal music halls being some of their other choices!
Nokia arrived in Liverpool on one of the many cold days we had in April, looking for an exciting space for their next Lumia Live Session. Their first choice was our skatepark, however we showed them around a couple of local venues we are big fans of and asked them their thoughts at the end of the day; “We really, really want to use Rampworx!” seemed to be the ultimate response, despite it being the most difficult venue and the one WITHOUT a stage, lighting, PA or an on-site chef. Something about our humble indoor park really ticked all their boxes, so we excitedly obliged.
A couple of weeks later, they had confirmed their date, headline act – the fantastic mercury nominated soul songstress Lianne La Havas – and, to our recommendation, booked our friends at Lucha Libre to manage the bar and make delicious frozen margaritas for the 200 exclusive guests.
The ball began to roll and before we knew it, on the morning of Thursday 30th May, we had a delivery of bright coloured beanbags and £100,000 worth of sound & lighting equipment being wheeled into our street section; Lianne was walking around the building playing her guitar and our team were running over to B&Q to pick up a mirror for her to do her make-up. This beautifully talented, mercury nominated artist, a personal friend of Stevie Wonder, Joss Stone and Prince, was walking around our park in a stylish, low-key leopard print hoody and denim jacket, talking to our skaters and sipping on Volvic from a polystyrene cup!
Infamous French bloggers, video producers and new music pioneers La Blogotheque, who pulled up in an amazing tour bus earlier in the day, were filming several local skaters during the day to feature in the production with the likes of Ste Melia, Kris Walker, Oliver Birch, Phil Cahill, Charlie Birch, Jonny Oates, Andy Jones, Guy Jones, Adam Crosby, Joe McGuffog all being filmed dropping in and doing back flips into the beanbags – even the infamous Jaydog managed to sneak his way into the shoot!!
The night ran perfectly, our guests took full advantage of the ‘first drink free’ set-up; knocking back frozen margaritas as the opening act, tipped to be the next big thing by BBC 1Xtra; the wonderfully soulful, local R&B, goose bump-inducing ear charmer Ady Suleiman with his guitarist & backing singer Ed Black took to the… Bowl… And opened the show. The vast space was silent as our audience were mesmerised by his sound; our 55,000 sq. ft. all-encompassing action sports warehouse, usually filled with some of the world’s best athletes, was filled with good vibes and amazing tunes ready for Lianne‘s big entrance.
Lianne walked through the park in a pair of shiny wedge shoes that provided a complete contrast to the ramps surrounding her. Her entrance was celebrated with a roaring applause, as the audience stood up and turned around to see her being walked through the park by one of her entourage and helped down the stairs into our bowl to take to the stage. As soon as her fingers started strumming those strings, all eyes were on Lianne and all ears were tingling as her pitch perfect, soulful vocals filled the, surprisingly acoustically effective, bowl – her rendition of Radiohead’s Weird Fishes / Arpeggi making the hairs on the back of our necks stand up as she started her set.
From then on, the night warmed up to be one of the best experiences in Rampworx history, wrapped up with an exclusive audience participation moment where Lianne, fulfilling our requests for an encore, returned to the bowl from our green room to perform an A Capella version of “You Raise Me Up”.
We had a such a great time and thoroughly enjoyed working with Nokia and Lianne La Havas. Their involvement with our organisation proves how diverse our events can be, and how much we definitely need to host more live music events at our park!
Lianne La Havas will be performing at Isle of Wight, Glastonbury, V-Festival, Lolapalooza, Central Park and many more festivals & locations this summer. Ady Suleiman will be performing at Liverpool’s East Village Arts Club on 29th June and the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury Festival.
Article: Ryan Cullen
Photos: Matthew Dearden
