The stars of the UK charts heading to Manchester last night to perform at the Key 103 Live show at the Manchester Arena and LaurieElle.com was there to meet them, trying to grab some backstage scoop, check out their outfits and grab a few selfies for the gram!
Performers included, Rita Ora, Rudimental, Zara Larsson, Sigala, James Arthur, Louisa Johnson and Louis Tomlinson.
I manage to speak to Kesi Dryden and Leon Rolle from Rudimental who were super friendly and great to interview. Rudimental have collaborated with both John Newman and James Arthur, I tried to find out who they would be working with next!!
Leon teased us with the answer without giving too much away he said:
‘We have been tucked away in Wales for the past week working on finishing some new material for the album, there’s going to be a lot of new vocalist on there, some which you may have already heard of.
‘But also in true Rudimental fashion they will be artist you may not have heard of, someone who is up and coming and who we can support and give a platform too, we love to do that.’
I asked who their dream collab would be… and Kesi and Leon both agreed that Lauryn Hill and Rudimental would be the dream team… can you imagine that!!!
Please make it happen!
The guys talked about their own musical influences and how the inspiration form their own music collection and their parents, whilst growing up is what gives them the talent to be able to bring together artist from different musical genres and make amazing tracks.
I also learned more about the track that makes Rudimental dance, the way I do when I hear their songs. Leon said: ‘I like a bit of house so I guess for me it would be Inspector Norse by Todd Terje’ Kesi said this was the track the group used to play before a gig to get them hyped and ready for the show. At this point the guys were also going to show me their signature dance moves but before I could get my camera out and ready they had been ushered off to the stage! Maybe next time we can arrange a dance off.
Zara Larsson also made her way backstage and although I didn’t get the chance to interview her, we had a quick chat and a selfie! She is even more beautiful in real life!
I was really looking forward to seeing her set, she always brings incredible stage presence and the dance and choreography is amazing.
I also managed to grab a quick chat with DJ Sigala before he headed to the stage to perform his tracks such as 'Came Here For Love' and 'Easy Love'
I had read that the dancers in Sigala's 'Easy Love' video aka 'Lucky Aces', were chosen after they were spotted on The Ellen Show and so I asked Sigala real name Bruce Fielder if he was involved in the process of picking dancers for his shows and videos and what advice he would give to dancers who wanted to work with artist, Sigala said:
‘I often use dancers in the live shows and I have a choreographer that works with me on that. For the last show he invited me in to watch the auditions where about 50 dancers took part.
‘I watched their auditions and made notes, I had not really done anything like that before. What I think was important though is that the dancers had to stand out to me, whether it was a trick, a back flip or even something unique about their hair, it was important they had something which stood them out from the rest’.
John Newman also popped backstage to see us and he was looking super suave for the show in a spectacular blazer and some seriously on trend velvet slip on shoes. Kygo feat. John Newman - Never Let You Go is out now.
There were lots of XFACTOR finalist at the show and both James Arthur and Louisa Johnson spent some time backstage before entertaining the crowds.
The show was hosted by Key 103’s breakfast show team Mike Toolan, Gemma Atkinson and Matt Haslam who entertained the crowds in between acts.
Rita Ora also slayed on stage with a great performance of her new single Anywhere – which is looking like it will break into the Top 10 this weekend. She was on stage with a team of backing dancers, which I absolutely love to watch!
*Special thanks to Key 103 and the team at Bauer Media
laurie-elle x
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