Friday morning brings the dawn chorus of our neighbour's kids and I hear a lot of useful tips on parenting young Ben over the next couple of days. Guess it's better than late night raving by teen kids. After breakfasting without decent coffee (my fault, soz guys) we hit the festival site proper. A bit of wandering around and watching half hearted comedy and our first band is Districts who are American Philly blues rockers waking us up and shaking off any late night blues. Strokesesque seems to be the general opinion and a great way to start the weekend. If we stayed for a bit of Black Rivers I can't remember it. Wandering past the Lake Stage we tarry for a bit of hip hop from Georgia then back to the big top for a bit of psyche Unknown Mortal Orchestra who are, well, a bit MOR psychelike. I wasn't blown away and think I went for a meander. By this time we'd met up with Jason, Steve and Sandra from Leeds. Needing a bit of shade and spunkier tunes we head up to the forest, nearby, not faraway, and get to the iArena in time to see King Gizzard and the Lizard in full flow. An anarchic blaze of glory with two drummers and punk mouth organ that Lee Brilleaux would've been proud of. Loads of guitars and a flute thrown in too. What more could we want in this shady spot. This Australian band (why are there so many great ones about) seemed to meander around songs improvising wildly and brilliantly. Great mix of punky psychedelic tunes. After we congratulate a couple of them on a great gig and whereas we thought they played about two tunes they say they played eight. Well recommended and worth seeing again. We give the Malian blues of Songhoy Blues the benefit of the doubt until decide that they are competent but not all that exciting and wander back to the main arena. Catch the end of a fantastically dressed Santigold and jig about to the end of her set which is uplifting and very enjoyable. She's a performer. Outfit at the Lake Stage are OK but uninspiring as too are the Wild Beasts that Ramsay wants us to see. Too slick by half with their style based on U2. Maybe that put me off them. Next bandwise are a real treat although Ramsay and Jo aren't overly impressed. Band named Formation who are a group of young kids singing about drugs and homoerotic war games. They are well up for the gig and give their all delivering a blistering funky punky party delivered with attitude. Just what I like. The singer comes into the crowd for the last song and although hardly a dangerous mosh pit we appreciate the effort. I didn't like the song about young kids which was introduced as "this is for all the old folk". Maybe he saw me throwing shapes at the front and was trying to shame me into leaving. They seemed to enjoy it as much as us. Go see. I trek back up from the Lake to the Obelisk to find my friends and to catch a fair bit of Caribou who impress me more than I expected with their (his?) atmospheric house techno mix. That's how I read it but others may disagree. Next we visit the big tent again to catch the end of Django Django who are very competent but we all feel like we've seen them so many times. So, instead of going back to the main stage to see the fantastic alt-J we eschew them and decide to make an effort to see new bands rather than ones we know inside out. Sort of works throughout the weekend but I wouldn't say we were that diligent. So onto someone I don't think I've seen before Jon Hopkins who isn't that dissimilar and, again, I'm surprisingly impressed by him. Although his logo looks like it's advertising a family run furniture store we are all pulled down into his mix of electro techno before it lifts us up euphorically with his soaring keyboards and other electronic jiggery pokery. A fantastic end to the day's official stages made all the better by being with the three Leeds friends. We then take off to wander around the site taking in this and that before turning home at a not too insensible hour to recuperate.
Relaxed breakfast again before seeing some really poor comedy. Swearing and telling dirty stories with oblique references to child abuse to a morning audience containing lots of children is not comedy. It's just shite. As Maya and Gill are here for the day we saunter up to the main Obelisk Stage to to meet them and to see Benjamin Booker's pretty impressive blues alternating between swampy and a more cutting edge R&B. A great start to a day in the hot sun. Fitting. Next up, or down, is Thurston Moore who gives us a blast of some post punk pre grunge with a modern guitar based twist. He and his band are great and although this set meanders less into full frontal guitar thrashing than when I saw a full length set recently in Hackney it still hits you down below in the gut and up in the head which goes soaring off with the riffs. OK, not a new band for us but too good to miss. Blossoms on the other hand are a poor mans too late Madchester looky likey but maybe they'd be better off in a small club whilst they learn their craft and develop their own sound. Entertaining but nothing new at least musically. We wander off to check out the Other Voices stage which is along the lake past the bathers (was considering it but an hour to queue?!). It's a biggish hut really like a mid west school house and when we get there it's rammed with folk watching Zachary Lucky who is playing dreary country and banging on about why he wears a cowboy hat. Not a good sign for seeing EIY tomorrow. We withdraw. Back along the lake we're all interviewed by local TV and are pretty sure they won't use the footage and we mostly say Latitude is like certain bits of Glastonbury and argue with each other about the best bands so far. [I make the Look East cut so have 15 seconds of fame - I think cos after a couple of ciders my west country twang resembles the local Suffolk accent] At the Alcove we are treated to a great two piece drum and guitar by the tight and effect R. Seiliog which gets us dancing of sorts despite the place being virtually empty. Nice to have cocktails instead of lager or cider though. My usual readership, who I can count on one hand, will be wondering where all my lazy comparisons are. As time goes on everything reminds me of Hawkwind, as you will all have realised, and I've decided not to give in to temptation for Latitude. However, RS are what Hawkwind would be like with no singers, only two band members and without the dancing girls. 30 years on. In other words very very good. Especially for an empty tent in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. I go back to the 6 Music tent to see Maya and Gill for Wolf Alice who serve up an excellent set. A lot rockier and heavier than I was expecting and although they are all model good looking, well from where I was stood which admittedly was a bit of a way back, they can rock the house as I think it's termed. As it's packed I don't see the two until afterwards and Maya emerges into the open looking as if she's been for a dip in the lake. Moshing in this heat is madness but I guess the young just don't care. Rock and Roll! After a chat and a pint we depart they to the Charlatons and me, in my bid to watch new music, for the Alcove to reunite with Ramsay and Jo. Jane Weaver has a fabulous voice and is backed by a very competent poppy psyche electronica band. The vocals are sort of 60s / 70s singer songwriter although I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that to be honest and possibly due to Jane's striking dress. With the poppish music the effect is slightly surreal which may be enhanced by the fact that they are missing their bassist, who if I remember has come to a bad end. [I just checked and apparently guitarist and bassist stuck on M6 so not life threatening] Maybe it made the whole set a bit weirder having half a band but sounded great anyway. Must go see with the whole band. We hang around outside bumping into a work colleague and then pop back in to see another female fronted band with equally striking appearance. Lonelady deliver a really tight set of full on hard core funk that had us jigging about. The whole set was faultless but not in a bad way - there's a lot of passion in both music and vocals. A good call all round. A wander over the lake back to the Lake Stage to see the punkiest band of the festival if not the moment who I saw at LAL it's the fantastic Pretty Vicious. Young fast and furious. Yay for the kids! Go see! Apparently Maya was also there but didn't see each other. From the ridiculous to the sublime... to see James Blake on the main stage. It's the perfect setting for laid back dub influenced synth steeped electro. With the understated stage presence especially compared to the Welsh kids we just saw it's the perfect music to see the sun go down gently swaying and a bit of foot movement for the bouncier tunes. Yeah there are bouncy tunes if you look for it. Having seen James B we then doubly disregard our only-new-bands policy and wait to see Portishead. Although some tracks are great it's the old ones and we don't feel the love. A bit formulaic. Or maybe too similar to Blakey and although certainly his predecessor maybe they were of their time and we've seen the future or at least the present with Jimmy B. So's we trek up to the woody iArena to see someone that we all have on our "maybe" list. Clark plays a blistering set of high octane techno that gets faster and faster and gets the whole place jumping. The tent is transformed into a club party with hands raised in the air more often than the infamous Arsenal back four and it's nearly as exciting as watching that classic team. OK, maybe Clark for most punters is a lot more exciting than one nil to the Arsenal but it's all a matter of taste. He is damn good though. Afterwards we spend a long time faffing about whether to see the secret act which is likely to be Thom Yorke and as the place is rammed and swarming with kids and security and we've all seen him before we decide against it and wander off. Whilst mooching we spot a place in the woods up the hill a bit and discover the Radio 3 stage. Not a natural late night spot for me but as we get there a mad looking band take the stage. Bloke in hippy clothes and flying V, English guy in sky clouds onesie on guitar who may be related to the Here and Now guitarist, two drummers with afros who may be Spanish or Portuguese speakers or both. We are treated to a fast paced hour of full on rock and roll psychedelic style like a clash of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and aforementioned Here and Now. It's a fantastic surprise although my mates have heard them before and soon the folk lounging on the settees are ousted by dancers and the whole place goes crazy. The band have a lot of chat with the audience and put on a spectacular show. Wall of noise late 70s early 80s festival band style. As they aren't taking themselves too seriously we don't have to either and everyone can stop muso-ing about and let rip. Which to be fair is what we've been doing all weekend but nice to have others do that with you. Fumaça Preta deliver everything you could wish for at this time of evening - rock, funk, latin beats, enforced singalong in Portuguese, getting out into the audience, moshing, stage invasion complete with old school style stage hands shoving people off the stage including one of the stage hands. All enveloped in a cloud of dust rising from the dry ground as we jump about. And we even get a pint of rum and orange from one of the stage managers as an apology cos he stood in front of Jo (before the dancing started) and I told him off. Must go see when not at the end of day two of a festival to see if they really are that good. After we wander around taking in the sights, leaving the Park Stage Indie Disco to the kids and getting free food from the vegan stall.
My alarm clock is the neighbour's kid which gives us time for breakfast ablutions and gets us down to see three cracking comedians at the comedy tent Tom Deacon, Aisling Bea and Romesh Ranganathan all having the right mix of a bit of crudity in a funny way but as part of the jokes rather than that being the joke. A great start to the day lounging in the sun with a pint. Passing by the big top to see enough of A Winged Victory for the Sullen in two minutes to last a lifetime I go up to see some unchallenging blues in the open air at the main stage in the form of Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens who deliver a great set of soul and gospel twinged blues like it says on the tin. Ramsay and Jo join me to lounge around idly. Down to the big top again to see a great set of funk and dance including some great footwork let alone the instruments by Kindness. They have lots of band members and are a cut back Parliament Funkadelic groove. With six more singers and double the instruments with more laid back funk lines and rockier guitars they could be George Clinton's vehicle. Great all the same and just what we need to get into the last festival day vibe. I'm then persuaded to go see the Boomtown Rats which I really didn't want to but Geldof is a real performer in a Mick Jagger swaggering pacing the stage style and they put on a real show. All the hits including the one I really wanted to see again Mary of the Fourth Form. Ahh... when we were young and teenage heartbreak was all we had to worry about. A great performance all in all and hats off to Sir Bob for berating the audience for wearing shabby T shirts weekend shorts and generally looking like David Cameron at a festival. We forgive you your arrogance Bob. He did look damn dapper too. Rattitude indeed. Ambling back to the shade of the Alcove we catch the DMA's who are fresh and spunky. Great voice and good musicians to label under Madchester made in Australia without the inventiveness of Jagwar Ma. Enjoyable and probably good to see in a sweaty dance club. The hotly anticipated Rat Boy then takes the stage but to be honest didn't press my buttons like he did at LAL. Seemed less anarchic, more polished and I didn't want to be stuck in a tent on a lovely day like this. You gotta catch the summer when you can. So I leave my "must see" band after a few numbers with my chums to go see a moody but very enjoyable set by Warpaint. Was a good way to ease into the early evening and they are great musicians although not overly talkative. They gave us a smile and wave as they left the stage which was nice. Up next are Vessels a Leeds five piece wearing matching but different coloured T shirts who are high energy electronic dance with two drums driving us forward in anticipation of another electronic act that we must go see breaking our "only new acts" promise. We get to the small enclosed American school house and East India Youth is already on stage. Impossible to squeeze even into the building but luckily a trail of hot and bothered folk exit and Jo leads the way through the dense throng ending up very close to the left hand side in an oasis of calm, punter wise, with room to dance. What a result. Well sniffed out Jo! Our efforts are rewarded with a blistering set by EIY who rocks the place. Hard core electronic techno dance not far from the frenzy that is Squarepusher when on form and how we loved it. Never fails to satisfy. We fall out of the place completely drenched and that lake looks damn inviting. We go for a wander about and end up at Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds to hear some Oasis like tunes and Oasis covers. All very comfortable and the three of us play a weird follow the leader through the crowd taking it in turns to stop and dance. After Champagne Supernova and Noel taking cheap shots at Guardian journalists the interest palls and we go see SBTRKT who has the big top jumping with a great dance set and just the perfect way to finish this year's blisteringly hot Latitude festival. Only thing to do is hit the soul disco at the Park Stage where Jo and I practice our Northern Soul footwork and pretty fine it was too considering we'd walked about 50 miles the previous few days.
Monday we pack under an overcast sky with a sprinkling of rain before turning into another hot day. I'm dropped off at Beccles station and have an uneventful journey home surrounded by overexcited youngsters. Back home my fantastic tan turns to dust in the bath. I watch myself on Look East and have to rewind 6 times before I can understand what I'm saying. No idea why they used that clip. Highlights from each day, new band policy in force are Formation, Lonelady and EIY. OK so the last is not new but sounds fresher every time I see him. Of course the best of the fest was being with Ramsay and Jo my adoptive festie parents. Cheers guys. Same again next year? X
| Me and Jo at Latitude |
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