Friday early morning rising to drive up to Suffolk for Latitude festival aiming to arrive before 10.30 which with kind traffic I do so. Then wait for the Palmer family (all 5 of them) to arrive with my tent. Short stroll to the camping area and we're welcomed by Jason, Steve, Roger, Maria, Sandra, Steve's brother, Jason's friend her daughter and her friend. All from Yorkshire so I'm the odd one out of 15. We're in the middle of an official heatwave here and it's boiling hot out. After splashing the factor 50 we venture down to the entertainment area through the other camping fields which are reminiscent of American depression dust bowl migrant photos. It's very sandy here and I can't understand where all the mud came from last year. A note on "we" - this could mean any combination of the aforementioned festi buddies but more often than not is me, Ramsay and Jo possibly with kids. Anyway, we head for the woody area which gives relief from the sun and our first show is Malcolm Middleton from Arab Strap who is now acoustic and folky and doesn't grab me in the same way that his previous band's device would do. But not a bad way to ease us into a festival. Next up is the brilliantly named Deptford Goth who is a soporific version of James Blake but just the downbeat bits. Maybe a little unfair as the heat is getting to me but then we soon trot off to see John Grant who my mates are raving about but I didn't like his new album much (sent to me by Rough Trade) and liked seeing him in a sweaty tent in 30 degrees heat even less. I leave the rest listening and resisting the urge to drown myself in the beautiful lake I go 100 yards down the field to the continually excellent Lake Stage for Wolf Alice who are an upbeat (well anything would seem so after the start) blend of indie electro with a bit of grungy pop thrown in for good measure. So pretty damn good if you like that sort of thing. Which I did. So after a nadir we're on the way up and are elevated a little bit more at the woody stage (officially the i-Arena and there are a few up there but one main one for bands and I don't like plugging the "i") to catch a perfectly formed 80s disco set by the ridiculously spelt Chvrches. They rightly go down very well and get feet shifting. Teleman are up next with great rock indie tunes but didn't compare to a late nighter at the tiny Crows Nest of 2 weeks ago but probably not their fault as it's a Friday afternoon. However immediately afterwards MØ do deliver a very danceable rocking out set. Their name is M with a scandanavian O with line thru it but not sure how will render on the net. Very good anyway regardless of whether you can read their name. DIIV are back at the wood and luckily Latitude is so small going from stage to stage is a gentle stroll taking in necessities such as drink, food, toilet, odd little things going on rather than the Glasto Trek. Anyway DIIV, whats with the name and how do you pronounce it? Sorry, you want to know about the music. Best described at least by my ears as upbeat indie heavy on the guitars leading into shoegazing territory at times whilst getting you dancing and if that sounds a strange combination maybe that's why they remind me of Egyptian Hip Hop who seem to be the marmite of rock pop whatever you want to call it. I love them. After that against our better judgement we check out Bloc Party who are headlining the main Obelisk Stage and they don't disappoint our expectations by churning out bland indie with no feeling and talk absolute Blocx like did anyone get slightly slowed down on the M25 today cos we did. Yeah. Whatever. So leaving them to it we catch a bit of Poetry by a guy who spent most of his time telling amusing anecdotes verging on comedy then go for a bop at one of the forest dance stages then come lakeside to watch a barnstorming set by Melt Yourself Down at the Radio 3 stage who rip the place up. We start off in an empty space next to a speaker and then realise why it's empty as ear drums are damaged a little bit more and I realise that Jo has cotton wool in her left ear. We sidle to the middle of the crowd centre stage and are mesmerised by the energy from the singer who we later argue about what language he was singing in. I thought possibly some of it was middle eastern or Indian origin but turns out to be, and this is according to a Guardian review and yes I did google them just to find out, turns out to be "French, Creole and personal gibberish". So as good a guess as ours. Back to the band who are the entertainingly threatening and vice versa front man singing whatever he was plus guitar, drums, bongos and two amazingly dirty sounding sax players who deliver the grungiest of undertones to the otherwise punk inspired jazz riffings and dare I say it improvs and reminding me of the blindingly great Blurt (check them out). To paraphrase Marley it was truly a Punky Jazzy Party. Jo doesn't like sax which was a bit of a bummer for her but it left us all on a real high and with a taste for jazz. After the bizarre experience of being aurally battered in the Radio 3 stage (now I'm 50 I really shouldn't be such a musical bigot and just accept that I like a lot of jazz including funk punk trad blues and Jimi Hendrix's noodlings) anyways after Radio 3 we meander back homeward wondering how it got so late and what the thousands of kids trooping off into the main site are going to see.
Saturday I wake thinking that there's an odd sound of the wind in the tent flysheet but no, it's the first rain for a month. Ah well it's not heavy although we have a few times where we're scurrying under the gazebo or tent flaps. We have an early i.e. pre 1pm date with Gaz Coombes ex Supergrass now Elvis lookalike but he does look good with it. He plays a good rock and roll set sometimes verging on rock 'n' roll with an oldie thrown in for us. We don't see all of him as late for the 1pm date but do get down to the Lake Stage to catch all of Flamingods who wear long swirling coloured smocks playing a seemingly shambolic indie pop very reminiscent of Egyptian Hip Hop which as I've mentioned them earlier either means they are influencing a new crop of bands or I'm getting lazy in my comparisons. Anyway we all get to dance a lot and I thoroughly enjoy them especially when they go off on their improv wigouts. Oh no... the jazz influence again... Hoping to avoid jazz but get a little improv we head up to the comedy tent to see what's on and have a real treat in someone I don't know regaling us with snippets about his family and girlfriends and life in south east London in general. The guy's called Rob Beckett and worth seeing. Especially if free at a festival. Thankfully it's a little cooler today with cloud cover which is handy as the next band are the most energetic of the day being the incredible Bo Ningen who get the weekend's Savage Your Brains award for the relentlessness of hardcoreness covering punk grunge and out and out metal complete with guitar hero poses and jumping into the crowd although avoiding the worryingly expanding full on mosh pit just to our right that seemingly had a blackholelike quality pulling punters into it's violent centre in a gravity defying rule that the lighter you are the stronger the force resulting in a pit of lithe under 25 years olds whilst us weightier oldies were mercifully left to watch in amusement and musing about our own moshpits of yesteryear... Sorry. Mind wandering a little there. So glad I saw Bo N as missed them earlier in the year as cancelled as support at Brixton Academy. After the climatic conclusion and much shouting for an encore to no effect, the band are on their knees coiling up cables, we stagger up the incline to the big tent to idly listen to a bit of White Denim who are meant to be a bit garagey according to Ramsay but I didn't really stop long to consider altho sounded OK probably still thinking about Bo Ningen. We then stay to watch Daughter who altho a bit folky for my sensibilities I do enjoy more than I thought I would as not my cup of tea but went down very well to help the switch between afternoon and evening. That's a little dismissive, they are good and am sure others can explain why far better than I. After some drifty music and deciding that even one song by Everything Everything is not a good use of my time (and I thought I was getting to like them) I head for the greatly anticipated at least by myself the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who I've not seen before and they don't disappoint filling the main stage with a really big modern rock sound sort of punk in an arty way that east coast yanks seem to do a lot better than us brits. By the end of their set the place was rocking and that's a good sign for 7.30pm. The weather's a lot better by know and it's a perfect setting for the whole gang to meet up stage left near the screen as per instructions. Most of us warmed up by the YYYs we are treated to a blindingly brilliant set by Hot Chip combining the best of electro dance funky beats getting our legs moving in ways we didn't think possible or had possibly forgotten about and our arms raised aloft as if Hot Chip were soundtracking the 2nd coming which to be honest would most likely have been missed in the general mayhem of jumping about with each other and mirth at those legs going. John seemed to have mastered his it's a lot easier at his age to transmit intention to actual for moving yer body. Given that the whole lot of us happy campers plus the guest liggers and a couple of others were all there and happy and into the sounds Hot Chip were one of the highlights of the weekend. The best I've seen them and certainly the most fun. After all that excitement I wander off passing by Richard Ashcroft who's dreary sounding after the Chip and Veronica Falls who sounded heavy indie but as I was just passing didn't give them the attention they probably deserve. I wander back up to see my mates and the start of Kraftwerk but they are as inanimate as last time I saw them and I've a date with the band that none of my mates like but I love... Alt-J. A packed tent and I'm on the edge but still get the effect of their brilliant dubbiness underpinning the folkish dancy indieness of it all which is going down a storm with the kids. After a set of classic tunes and a roaring throbbing finale I go back for the last couple of songs by the germanic miserablists which could be taped. The 3D effects are pretty lame considering this is 2013 and they admittedly were so innovative back in the day. All 4 just stand at their keyboards and during the last song they troop off one at a time. Seems odd that the song is still going as strong as ever and it continues even when the last guy (the only original?) takes his bow. So it was all taped? Ah well who cares really? I meet back up with the family Palmer and we wander off to the nether regions of Latitude stumbling across a stage playing disco with 6 scantily clad dancers on stage camping it up outrageously. We then queue up for a performance art installation entitled Wank involving us being shown one at a time to individual booths where behind closed curtains there's a stool and headphones to listen to a looped 6 minute long short snippets of rambling musings by both sexes about wanking which gets a little weird for me when the woman running the thing introduces a woman into my booth who sits on the spare stool. I explain that there's only one set of headphones so she goes out only to be pushed back in and the curtains closed. A bit embarrassed sitting opposite an innocently oblivious young woman smiling at each other in a sort of Hi we've been thrown together and it's a little awkward kind of way whilst I listen to erotic musings so I do the decent thing, OK, after a couple of minutes, and hand the headphones to her saying that it's been a weird experience for me and she'll realise why after listening. No one else seemed to have the same embarrassing situation trust me to get the booth with 2 chairs. Back past the disco stage and some woody arty installations and we see a brightly painted common or garden wooden shed with the fluorescent words Happy Shamanic Ju Ju Shed which has the strains of Chic pumping out and as the door is open and although it's packed inside we five are invited in enthusiastically and enter squashing the others up and we shut the door behind us which is only polite and I wasn't born in a barn was I. After a bit of a restricted bop around a young voice of our crowd shouts out I'm covered in poppers and the acrid smell rises up filling the shed. Not a great fan I tumble out the door along with the others and the inevitable happens with us all laughing like hyenas for ages with the doused one collapsed on the floor with laughter. The hilarity passes and we move on wondering if it was all part of the installation but I'm not sure that amyl nitrate is the drug of choice for shamen or indeed The Shamen. We escape the Faraway Forest's Grimm-like attractions walking around the lake until we get to the Radio 3 stage where we catch the end of a band and then skank to Bob and the Wailers whilst the youngsters set up what turns out to be a very popular limbo dancing competition which obviously favours the young and nimble rather than myself. My excuse is that cycling's not good for flexing calf muscles and I'm sticking to it. After that we are treated to a proper full on noodly jazz band named Troyka who are surprisingly (for me) good especially when going blues style reminiscent of the much maligned (by myself) Jimi Hendrix and also when treated to the magnificent Kit Downes on his massively swelling Hammondesque organ. Sorry, that last bit of gratuitous smut is paraphrasing a line from The Stranglers white EP given away with Black and White. So a bit of bopping around and a lot of wondering if I'm on the slippery slope to liking hard core jazzy noodling. Also met a very nice man from Dorking who bikes up Box Hill on his single speed, OK the easy Zig Zag path, and works at the free gluten free bread stall. If he ever stumbles across this leave a comment and say hello mate! I am now meandering nearly as much as Troyka and our subsequent journey back to camp and in true jazz improvisation fashion mimicked by the jazz Beat Writers my account of the preceding few hours contains all the right words but not necessarily in the right order as the great late Eric Morecambe once nearly said to that great jazz pianist André Previn. There's a thread running through this weekend.
Sunday morning is scorching forcing us out of our tents early and after chatting in the camouflage gazebo for a while a few of us head down to the festi site to see Richard Herring who has us laughing in the aisles or OK laughing whilst lounging around outside the Comedy Tent sipping cider. Hilarious stories meandering off all over the place and quite a lot about the theme for the weekend i.e. masturbation. Apparently Richard will never tire of it even with his new girlfriend who he buys Ferrerro Roche chocolates for but which will ultimately enforce the entire world into slavery for his cause. Sorry, a small spoiler there. After that we troop up to see Bobby Womack which I was a bit unsure about but which is an excellent way to start the afteroon with a good old gospel influenced soul funk shakedown. Having seen a living legend we head for the woods to see an up and coming band who sound like legends... it's the Hawkwind botherers Hookworms who get us all jumping and headbanging to the sounds of psychedelic dance rock. After the excitement of 70s space rock we are then treated to the worst of folky musings by James Yorkston and friends. Sorry that may be a bit harsh but after Bobby and Hookworms a folky beardyman with crap chat was not the ticket but at least he chatted to us I guess even if far from Richard H. We've stayed under the shade of trees to see the next band Temples who blast us with 60s style garage rock best described as Ramsay did as Byrds like. By now it's getting later in the afternoon but as we trundle off from the shelter of the wood into the open savanna of the main site and the Obelisk stage the full force of the sun hits us forcing me to resort to my camouflage baseball cap. Our goal is a central spot for what turns out to be an incredibly moving and brilliant set by James Blake taking in the most understated minimalist music of the festival moving through a bigger make the hairs on your neck stand on end sound and crescendoing in big juicy dub beats which I've only heard before on black vinyl from Kingston studios. Live it's amazing. Staggering out of the arena we drop in on Cocorosie who are a strange bunch including 2 made up girls with amazing voices, a human beat box which seems odd given the rest play synths. Possibly cos it's after Blakie but I'm not overly impressed and we wander off for eats and sit awhile watching life go by which increasingly is hoards of kids in shorts and light shirts without a sensible piece of clothing for the inevitably cooler night between them. They're all off to see Rudimental which I don't quite get even when venturing near the big tent to see what it's all about. We opt for Swim Deep who churn out retro rock which maybe is good in a club atmosphere. After that we go woodwards to see a great African funk band called Tamikrest who I think are from Mali. Maybe the music has a better defining name than my description but that's what it sounded like. The place has an average age which is about 45 years older than the average age at Rudimental (honest john) but we're all bopping away (well those of us without hip replacements which to be fair seemed list most of the audience) and the band obviously love playing to us. After it I bump into footie mate Chris but he's coming and we're going. And now to Sunday's headliners up at the big stage. Foals deliver a thrashingly big sound lurching from post indie rock and by the end of the set have regressed to out and out 1970s Heavy Rock with crazy big riffs which are almost musically incorrect but which the crowd loves and so do I. I'm a convert. For tonight at least. An embarrassing moment when one of the younger girls in our party (yes, we're nearly all there) ask me if I've seen them before and I reply that I don't think so. Without hearing this Ramsay turns round after the end of that song and says to me that he thinks that the Foals are the band that he me and Jo have seen the most all 3 of us together. When I say when on earth have we seen them he says just 2 weeks ago at Glastonbury just before Alt-J and also couple of years ago at Glastonbury. Now I checked my blog and can't see when I saw them at Glasto and Clashfinder says it was after Alt-J and I was at Django rather than Foals. So my memory is not as bad as I thought it was at the weekend. And Ramsay's is worse. Vindicated! Spewed back into the mass of kids me and the Palmer clan dance like crazies at the Moshi Moshi indie disco until it goes distinctly non indie and then sit around in the woods chatting and joking taking bad photos hearing Anushka then when scouring the other stages with rave-like overtones then bump into some of our other party and us adults decide to call it a day and leave the kiddies to it. We sit around back at camp reminiscing about the weekend before turning in. The end of a great weekend with great company especially the family Palmer of which I am a part if only in photos and richly weird at times. The weekend not the Palmers. Altho now I think about it...
So what with visiting weird installations in the wood and Richard H's musings added to listening to free form improv at the Radio 3 parlour far too often for my own musical good the weekend can be summed up as Wank Jazz. Which may not be an official jazz genre but is an apt epitaph for that musical form. The two themes go strangely together given the origin of the word jazz. For all you etymologists out there and I know that some of you are here's further reading... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_(word) Too much jazzing to Radio 3 indeed.
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