Robert Casson was a huge figure on Liverpool’s music scene
17:14, 29 Aug 2025Updated 17:38, 29 Aug 2025
Liverpool club promoter Rob Casson
Liverpool clubland was left reeling back in May when one of its best-loved figures, Rob Casson, passed away suddenly. Father-of-four Rob, 46, from Lydiate, was a co-founder of the club night Freeze as well as being head of business and client management at ticketing platform Skiddle.
A creative force, not to mention a hugely fun individual, he helped put on some of the city’s most pioneering events over the last 20 years with shows at venues like the Asylum, Liverpool Cathedral and the Bombed Out Church.
On Sunday the Freeze team will be celebrating Rob’s life with a party at the Wav Garden featuring a host of huge DJ names. Clubs editor Emma Johnson spoke with Rob’s best friend and co-promoter Simon Johnson to find out more.
For anyone who never went to Freeze, tell us about Rob, please…
As well as being one of the greatest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, Rob was a big influence in Liverpool clubland. If you have been on a decent dancefloor in the last 25 years there is a good chance that Rob will have had something to do with it. That’s from the Freeze days to shows at the Cathedral, St George’s Hall, the [Williamson] Tunnels, and then the Dome at [Grand Central], where Rob was one of the partners.
What made him such a special guy in your opinion?
One of my best mates summed him up really well. When we first got friendly and she met all my mates she said that Rob was always the one who wanted to be the most welcoming and most inclusive person. That summed up who he was.
When did Freeze start?
The first Freeze was in October 2005 at the Lemon Lounge. We dragged everybody along whether they liked dance music or not. I think my parents came to it…
And when did you start to think you might be on to something?
We were in the Lemon Lounge maybe 18 months. Rob was expecting a baby so we stopped for a bit. After Rob had the baby we wanted to get back to it and that was when we asked Carl [Thomas] to get involved. The first show we did after that break was the first show in the Tunnels when we had Ben Watt on. We sold the Tunnels out and then we did a load more shows there with the likes of Nick Warren, Hernán Cattáneo and Guy J. Then we started thinking maybe we could do something bigger.
And that’s when you turned your attention to Liverpool Cathedral?
Yes, the Cathedral show with Danny Howells and Hernan. Then we did St George’s Hall, and then the Bombed Out Church and we became known as people who did daytime shows in venues that aren’t venues. It went really well. Freeze stopped as a regular night in around 2015. It was a good 10 years though. My personal favourites were always the Bombed Out Church gigs – Solomun, Jamie XX, John Digweed… It’s a cracking venue.
It was a huge shock when we lost Rob but Freeze had a big event taking place just days later with Sasha and Digweed at the Dome…
We did. That event had been a long time in the planning. I remember when we first started Freeze, Rob came flying over to us in the Lemon Lounge one night saying he was going to book Sasha. But he had never managed to do it under the Freeze banner. We had John on a few times but never Sasha. Then came the opportunity to book them both [this year].
The day after Rob died we met up and said ‘what are we doing about the show?’ It took me Carl and Andy about 20 seconds to say we had to carry on. It was an unbelievable show. The love we all felt walking in there was amazing. We all knew what that show would have meant to Rob. Sasha and John could not have been more accommodating. Sasha doesn’t play [his track] Xpander anymore but he played it at the end. It was a moving end to what had been a horrendous week.
Turning to this weekend’s event, what was the idea behind it?
We wanted to allow some time after the funeral for people to process but we wanted to do something that celebrated Rob’s life. It is not a serious club show. It’s a serious line-up, but we want it to be a party that celebrates what Rob meant to us. We don’t want it to be heads down. We want heads up, arms in the air.
Talk us through the line-up?
You have me and Andy starting things off at 1pm, then Derek Kaye, then Steve Parry, then Jemmy, Danny Howells, then Greg Wilson, and then from 9.30 to close – somewhere around 10pm, we are labelling that the Freeze Allstars. We will all play a couple of records that most remind us of Rob. I think that will be a suitable, albeit emotional, end to what we hope is a great party.
Freeze Celebrating The Life of Founder Rob Casson is at Wav Garden on Sunday from, 1-10pm.