‘When the lights go out & the gig starts, there’s nothing like it’: Connexin Live celebrates its 5th birthday
ICON: Noel Gallagher, who plays Connexin Live on Wednesday, five years to the day since the venue’s first show. Picture by Danielle Madden
When Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds take to the stage at Connexin Live on Wednesday night, it will mark five years to the day since another music legend, Van Morrison, performed the first show at the venue then known as the Bonus Arena. Paul Savage and Sam Ryder, two key members of staff who have been there from the start, tell Simon Bristow about a memorable first five years
After the concept, planning, construction and a lot of hard work in between, it all came down to one moment – when the soft, mellifluous saxophone began its lilting refrain in the introduction to The Skye Boat Song.
On stage was Irish music legend Van Morrison, and as his band kicked in behind him a new era for live entertainment in Hull had begun.
It was August 30, 2018, and the first of many sold-out shows at the city’s new 3,500-capacity venue in Myton Street, which began life as the Bonus Arena, and was relaunched this month as Connexin Live.
The venue’s management had understandably wanted to go big with their first concert, and there were few bigger than Van Morrison. Also to be expected were opening night nerves – there was a lot at stake.
Paul Savage, head of sales and marketing, recalls the moment well. He said: “All of us [non-operational staff] stood just through the side of this wall and watched as he walked on stage. I remember really vividly this hum of excitement and nervousness and I think the sax was the first thing that was played, this note was played, and you could almost sense this drop [in tension] and everyone was fine.
LEGEND: Van Morrison gave a stunning performance on opening night – despite getting stuck in a lift on his way to the stage. Picture by Danielle Madden
“He was on stage, he was playing, the event was happening and all of that build up, that sort of crescendo, there was this one note and then everybody just breathes this massive sigh of relief and it was all fine.
“And all the months of hard work that had gone into making that happen – most of the people who had actually been part of the build were in the building watching the show. We made sure there were people from Hull City Council, the building contractor, the architects were here, there was a swathe of people who’d been involved in the process from start to finish who all got to enjoy that first moment. It was special.”
One of those who did not have the luxury of taking it all in was Paul’s colleague Sam Ryder, who is now the venue’s general manager but found himself being a very hands-on head of operations on opening night. For it can now be revealed that one of the scenarios they must have dreaded actually came to pass – Van Morrison got stuck in a lift on his way down to the stage.
Sam said: “I remember him getting stuck in the lift. One of the things we had identified in the build phase was that the lifts were a little bit temperamental at times. As with most new buildings you get some teething issues. So we’d booked a lift engineer to stay on site with us for the night just to make sure, in case anything went down.
RICHARD ASHCROFT: ‘When the strings started on Bitter Sweet Symphony everyone just went crazy’. Picture by Danielle Madden
“And we got a call that the back-of-house lift has gone down, it’s frozen between floors. Let’s call him Barry [the lift engineer] for the purposes of this. ‘Barry, can you go and just check this because Van’s due on stage due on stage any minute?’ He manages to get the lift to come down, opens the door and says to everyone in the lift, ‘Thank God Van Morrison wasn’t in this’, and he [Van] puts his hand up – he’s literally on his way down to the stage.
“We still got him on stage on time. The event was fantastic. There was no support, eight ‘o clock doors, he came on an did an hour and a half, just him and his band, left, and I think everyone was delighted. And then we were straight into League of Gentlemen [next show] after that.”
Although Morrison’s performance marked the official opening, there had been a number of test events, including a BBC Introducing show featuring local artists including Chiedu Oraka, Bud Sugar, The Hubbards, and End of Level Baddie.
But it was another non-musical test event that gave the first indication how interested and excited Hull audiences were about their new venue, and the lengths they would go to to support it. This was to test the venue’s toilets and became known as The Grand Flush.
THE GREATEST: Harlem Globetrotters brought their basketball skills to the arena in April 2019. Picture by Danielle Madden
A former CEO had previously had a bad experience with toilets not working at another venue and did not want a repeat. It was Paul who came up with the idea of inviting the public in to flush them all at once, with a tour of the new venue to follow as an incentive. It was an invitation not made without some trepidation.
Sam said: “I think it was Paul who came up with the idea of basically let’s invite people in. We’ve got 126 toilets in the building, let’s get 126 people in and flush them all. We thought, ‘Oh God, no one’s going to turn up to this’, and we had 700 people apply to flush the toilets.”
Paul said: “They came in, flushed the toilets, and then got the first tour. As head of operations at the time, Sam’s job was to make sure that everything on that first night would work. And so you need to test all the toilets, you need to test all the fire alarms, the smoke alarms. We tested exit routes, we tested fire safety evacuations, all this kind of stuff the public just don’t see.”
Sam and Paul, who previously worked together at the Baths Hall in Scunthorpe, are among a number of staff who have been at the venue from the start. They often watched from the car park of Princes Quay as it was being built, a process completed from start to finish in just nine months.
PACKED: Fans enjoying NE-YO’s performance last September. Picture by Will Kirk
“We both saw it from the ground up, really,” said Sam. “We were here in hard hats, we were working on the plans, all that kind of thing. There’s something really special about seeing a building as a CAD (computer-aided design) drawing and kind of walking in and realising it.”
Another confidence-boosting sign that the venue would be a success and go on to be so well supported came with an early booking before anyone had yet set foot on stage.
Paul said: “There have been so many stand-out moments. I remember when we announced George Ezra before the building had even opened and the tickets sold out within two or three minutes. And that was the first time that tickets had flown straight out.
“I think it was the second or third show we’d announced and obviously at that point you’re not sure and hopefully everything’s going to go fine – I think that was the moment of realisation for us, that we knew we were onto a winner.”
As anyone who has worked in the industry will know, keeping things ticking along smoothly does not just require overcoming technical problems with lifts, but dealing with the unexpected and catering for the preferences of some of the stars people are coming to see.
SPECTACULAR: Stereophonics on stage in May 2019. Picture by Danielle Madden
A woman scattering her father’s ashes on the stage before the Bob Dylan gig last October falls into the unexpected category, while creating the right dressing room ambience for Jack White – one of Sam’s musical heroes – comes in the latter.
Sam said: “He was an absolute idol to me when I was growing up and it was the first standing show we’d ever done so we bent over backwards to make everything work on that one. Being American and therefore liking nicer dressing rooms than perhaps most of the English artists who’ve come through playing pubs and clubs – we got a complaint there weren’t enough sofas for it so we actually rang The Holiday Inn across the road. And I’ve got a very vivid memory of seeing Mark [Hewitt], our technical manager at the time, who’s now head of operations, and six crew carrying two sofas across the A63.
“And we also got his 1930s jukebox up in the lift to his dressing room that he tours with.”
Some of the stars who have appeared at the venue have made themselves surprisingly accessible. Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft was among those – eschewing the rock star trappings that might be expected to arrive in Hull by train and then walk across to the arena, unnoticed by passers-by.
STAGECRAFT: Rick Astley performing in October 2018. Picture by Danielle Madden
For two people who have been part of the journey since the beginning, the venue has also provided some special moments for both Sam and Paul. Sam said he did not realise how much it meant to him until the enforced absence as a result of the Covid pandemic.
He said: “When Covid happened I was sat at home with a new-born and I was flicking through YouTube on gigs that we’d had, and one of the first videos that comes up is Cortinas doing Not Nineteen Forever. I remember watching that and thinking, ‘Oh God I need to be back there’.
“That show was when Cortinas were not at their peak but very much a hot band at the time with an up and coming Gerry Cinnamon in support and that was a really special show.”
Asked for his personal highlights, Paul said: “Paul Heaton was amazing. The Offspring were amazing. For me there were two songs that still make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I think about them. One was Richard Ashcroft doing Bitter Sweet Symphony, and the strings started and everybody just went crazy. That gig was incredible.
ENJOYING THE MOMENT: Boyzone in September 2019. Picture by Danielle Madden
“And the other one was when Noel Gallagher played Don’t Look Back in Anger. It was a seated gig and the crowd was into the gig but fairly sedate, and then I remember he started playing that and the whole place went bananas. It was almost like a pinch me moment – all the work we’d done to get to this point of having for me certainly one of the greatest songwriters of my generation sat on the stage.”
Other huge names the venue has hosted include Stereophonics, Sean Paul, Sarah Millican, Tom Grennan, WWE Live, Jack Whitehall, Blondie, Bryan Adams, Paloma Faith and Romesh Ranganathan. It welcomed 200,000 visitors in 2022 alone.
More than half a million tickets have been sold for well over 300 events at the venue since 2018. Last year it was ranked the 51st busiest arena in Europe as part of the Pollstar rankings, the first time the venue cracked the prestigious top 100. It was also rated by Billboard magazine as one of the top 20 venues to watch in the world in 2019.
And it is not just a concert venue. Paul said: “The venue itself has lent really well to being able to be multifunctional, so we’ve hosted War of the Worlds and we’ve hosted big gigs; we’ve also had darts, we’ve had snooker, we’ve had the Harlem Globe Trotters, we’ve had big dinners, award ceremonies, big workshops and conferences. It is a mix and that mix is important. It brings people in from all over the place.”
Twenty-five per cent of the audience comes from outside Hull and East Riding. And for some events the reach is global. Among those coming to see Noel Gallagher on Wednesday are people from mainland Europe and North America. Other shows have attracted visitors from New Zealand and Japan – a pulling power that provides a welcome boost to the city economy.
‘SO MANY STAND-OUT MOMENTS’: Paul Savage, left, head of sales and marketing at Connexin Live, with general manager Sam Ryder
Paul said: “I remember receiving an email from someone who was coming to see Boy George and Culture Club back in 2019 and they stayed at The Holiday Inn, very early on [for the venue] and they were spending five days in Hull having flown over from Japan to see the gig. They wanted to know where to stay, what to do, where to go. That’s astonishing but it goes to prove again the benefits of having a space like this.”
A major part of the success, however, has been the support the venue has enjoyed from closer to home.
“The people of Hull are fiercely proud and fiercely supportive of the venue as well,” Paul said.
“They’re our best brand ambassadors. And I think this is a 2017 City of Culture thing. Not being from Hull originally, being from Grimsby originally, but having been and worked in the city now for five, six years – 2017 I think was a shift from people being fiercely proud of their city but now being vocal about being fiercely proud of their city.
“They saw a change that things would come to the city and be successful and they’ve taken it and run with it.”
It can be a challenging and high-pressured environment to work in, and it’s definitely not nine-to-five for some. The War of the Worlds show, for example, involve accommodating 35 tonnes of steel that arrived on 14 articulated lorries. For Sam that was a huge logistical challenge that ended with load-out at 2.30am, and he was back in at 6.30am the next day for Paul Weller’s load-in.
‘HE SIGNED EVERY AUTOGRAPH’: Noel Gallagher, on stage in May 2019. Picture by Danielle Madden
But neither would want to be anywhere else. Paul said: “It’s a job satisfaction that you don’t get in other things. It’s a joy and a feeling that is palpable.”
Sam said: “The moment when the lights go out, you can have had the worst week but as soon as the gig starts you get that buzz back. I’ve worked in live music for 15, 16 years and you’re only ever as good as your next gig but it keeps you on your toes and it keeps you interested and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
The excitement is already starting to build for the Noel Gallagher gig on Wednesday, which should provide a memorable fifth anniversary for the venue.
“Everybody in the city is going to be talking about that gig,” said Paul. “I remember when we got confirmation of Noel back in 2019 and we thought ‘Wow, Noel Gallagher’s coming, this is a one-off’, and four years later he’s coming back at his request, so again it’s got to be great for the city.”
If the former Oasis star is half as accommodating as he was on his previous visit, fans are in for a treat.
Paul said: “I remember when Noel came last time, there people waiting for him outside and he dished out loads of free tickets off his guest list to people. He signed every autograph, took every picture.”
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