Latitude - the aftermath
Just back from Latitude having quite literally 'drove all night' - left Suffolk at 11 last night, dropped the boy off in Somerset at 4 this morning and arrived home in leafy Cheshire just after 7.
But why sleep when I can share my thoughts with the Word Massive?
The festival itself - nice size, plenty of camping space, lots going on. Crowd were sort of a cross between Glastonbury and Cornbury - lots of families with small kids but also groups of teens and twenty/thirtysomethings (as well as old farts like me...)
Highlights - Plenty...
Grinderman last night were raucous and rockin', possibly the most fun all weekend. Nick Cave really up for it.
Elbow on Saturday - I know this band is very well thought of in this neck of the woods but they'd always passed me by a bit - now I understand what the fuss is all about.
Death Cab for Cutie - Great tunes and a great show overall.
Franz Ferdinand - Really engaged with the crowd - no encore surprisingly, don't know if that's their normal form but a few disappointed punters.
Sigur Ros - wasn't sure how they would go down with a largely disinterested audience, but after a slightly suspicious start, they really did engage with the help of a New Orleans brass band and lots of little paper streamers.
Foals - hugely popular with the young indie kids who turned up - the boy (18) went down to the front by himself for this lot and felt 'old and out of place'. New band for 'the skins generation', I am led to believe. I also understand this is not a reference to the crop-haired ruffians of my youth. Band still sounded ok though.
Seasick Steve - as always. And me and the boy had a chat & got our picture took with the great man - will upload when I have photobucketted.
British Sea Power - rapidly becoming one of my favourite bands and far better than their performance the other week in a cramped Glastonbury tent.
The Coral - acoustic set which reminded me just how many really good songs they do have.
New bands (to me) who merit further exploration:
Nada Surf - American indie/white dreadlocks but still good in a preppy, Weezer-ish sort of way.
I Am Kloot - Manc band who I have overlooked for some reason - great voice, great songs. Crappy name.
Beggars - very young band from Reading who have the tunes and the pretty boy looks to go far.
The Maybes? - Liverpool band who rocked hard ('Liverpool Bands' can no doubt provide more details. Prize for the loudest band of the week by a mile.
The New York Fund - Scottish band who turned in a short but sweet set on the 'BBC Introducing...' stage.
Disappointments - very few, apart from...
Julian Cope - took an age to get his act together and actually start his set which meant I had to miss him completely.
The soundmen - very quick and efficient turnaround of bands (which is good) but seemed to lead to many bands having problems with their monitor sound balance particularly on vocals. There seemed to be running repairs on almost every set on every stage.
The weather - just couldn't make its mind up. Bright sunshine followed by rain followed by more sunshine.
Didn't spoil a fantastic weekend though.
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Seasick
I wasn't at Latitude however I did get my pic taken with Seasick Steve at a previous festival. Perhaps everyone has a picture of themselves with Seasick Steve?
Um, do you ever read any of the other magazines, Niks?
Just wondering..........
Nice tablecloth, tho. Plastic?
I only ever pick up a copy
when they give it away free at the Cambridge Folk Festival every year whilst you're queing to have your picture taken with bearded bluesmen. I get about a quarter of the way through and then remember why I don't buy it the rest of the year.
Do Word magazine have their own tablecloths? If not why not, they're letting the competition get away from them!
Uncut
Latitude is their Cornbury, if you will. Big play in the magazine, and an Uncut Arena at the festival (in a big tent, essentially the 'Other Stage' in Glastonbury terminology).
But did they have another tent, with a few tables and chairs and the odd journalist? I think not. Did their editor turn up and play the bass with his band? Did he buggery.
Lightweights.
Did their editor turn up and play bass......
Too busy polishing off his old stories of when he was a cocaine hoover with Engelbert Humperdinck, the chartreuse lake emptied with Gilbert O'Sullivan and stamp collecting mayhem with Roger Hodgson. And buggery with.... that's enough, writes a lawyer.
Pictures...
...at http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg313/BluePaul/Latitude%202008/
But in the meantime, I give you...
Aliens - forgot to mention how good they were. Mad as a sackful of badgers, mind.
Franz Ferdinand
Grinderman - nice suit Mr. Cave!
Me, the boy and Seasick Steve. Steve's the one in the middle, by the way.
He still...
... hasn't had a shave or changed his hat.
Blimey you were quick off the mark
have to concur with most of the stuff above except death cab for cuties were rotten.
Extra stuff Julian Cope was really really realy really rubbish, the breeders were great, as were the House of Love, the poetry tent was good Simon Armitage espesh. Can also add that the running of the show was great also enjoyed late night campsite chats with fellow word readers about obscure fantasy fiction etc! here's my pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/bltpicons/sets/72157606294584281/
Shame about Julian
What was that nonsense with the sheet hiding the stage while it was being set up? What was so special it had to be hidden?
Glad I left now. Enjoyed Death Cab myself - but pretty familiar with the material (and possibly influenced by the boy as well).
Agree about The Breeders by the way. In a way, the music was so good I failed to get into the comedy/theatre/literary stuff which was a shame.
Nice festival - enjoyed it loads although they could have cleaned the loos out a bit quicker - they were pretty rancid by Sunday. Even Glastonbury had nicer loos this year!
Nice pics by the way - looks like fun was had by all!
Yes
was expecting stone henge to appear from behind the sheet(at copey gig) not an ordinary stage set up it was a real poor show, classic case of pop star self indulgence run wild. We got 2 songs and 10 minutes of cod mystic ranting which was all cut short.
Surpirsed by your comments on the loos as we all thought they were the best we'd seen at a festival but this is one area where people are very (quite rightly) particular! We liked the compactness of the set up making getting around easy, it all didn't feel that "posh" compared to glasto except the pimms tent and the odd patron!
we couldn't decide if the weather got in the way or not.
Avoid the content if you are of a delicate disposition...
As long drops go, they weren't too bad I guess, especially if you are sitting down rather than standing up...I think the roof on the long drops tends to hold the smell in rather than letting it dissipate, as it were - better to keep them open to the elements!
We were camped at the junction between red and green camping (if that makes sense) and our loos seemed to be subject to pretty heavy traffic and queues, which might have made things worse?
My comparison point this year is really the flushing portaloos they had at both Glastonbury and Cornbury, which I found 99% of the time to be clean and pretty well odourless - far better than the long drops this year.
Ick. Anyway, I keep remembering things - thought Murder By Death were also very good in a doom-laden Americana bible belt sort of way - been downloading some of their stuff today and very good it is too.
The Maybes?
Well I wrote a long reply to this listing various other great new Liverpool bands and showing the variety but I was so busy checking the links worked the bleeding message got lost!!!
Anyway The Maybes? can be found at http://www.myspace.com/themaybesliverpool
and my main site of past and present Liverpol Bands is at www.myspace.com/scouserinexile - every friend is a band or solo artist - come and play band bingo and see who you select.
But if you want to look for some of my faves =
Amsterdam
The Majority
Guerrilla Farm
Rude Ruby
The Violent Playground
David Tyrrell
Latitude 2008 was terrific
My first time at Latitude and it was absolutely terrific (although I am what their marketing people would describe as their target demographic).
Very family friendly - the Children's Arena was fantastic and had loads of activities.
The only downsides:
- people sitting during The Coral (with no interest in the band), when fans couldn't get into the tent and were left outside in the rain
- lots of teenagers down the front talking through the House of Love. They were obviously getting there early for The Guillemots.
- the food and drink prices!
I missed as much as I saw - Micah P Hinson, The Guillemots, British Sea Power, Black Kids, Death Cab, Elbow, Sigur Ros, Interpol & virtually everything in the Comedy, Literary, Poetry and Theatre Arenas. Sadly, I also missed one of my pals, who is old enough to know better, crowd-surfing down the front of the main stage during Grinderman and getting helped out by security.
Drinking a pint of Smirnoff Ice down at The Sunrise Arena on the first night, I thought that it was probably the best setting for a festival stage that I've seen.
Franz, Glasvegas, The Coral, The House Of Love & The Tindersticks (the bits I saw) were all excellent.
However, for me, the highlights were:
- Clinic - the indie rock Banksy
- Crystal Castles - it was like discovering Daft Punk at a school disco. We lasted about 90 seconds in the middle before the whole tent started bouncing
- Foals - the best live band I've seen for a while (and Yannis stood up to Johnny Rotten!)
Magical setting, great atmos and surprisingly little agg for a 3 day festival.
Clinic are great
Missed them at Latitude but saw them supporting Arcade Fire last year and loved them to bits.
Did they do the whole Surgical Mask/Scrubs/Top Hat thing?
The Coral thing was absolutely daft and potentially dangerous. In fact the whole principle of having what is essentially the second stage in a tent is daft. Far better to swap the Lake and Uncut stages around for me, perhaps with a bit of repositioning.
we thought the comedy tent
would have been better as the lake stage as it was always heaving, big top muisc tents can be bad as they have poles inside which block sight lines.
Uncut tent was pants, but the festival was wonderful
I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to Latitude, and, tellingly I fear, spent a significant amount of time in the radio 4 tent watching Just A Minute and similar stuff being recorded. Ross Noble was worth seeing on that and Broadcasting House.
I confess we went for boutique camping et al, but that was a real plus on the toilet shower and security front!
The Obelisk Arena was so easy, made it as near as I wanted to for any band I saw there.
Uncut arena was cramped and claustraphobic, with a poor view from the sides. I agree it should have been the Lake stage, would hae been perfect. Paul Heaton was Mr Entertainment in the Uncut tent having said all that, giving out a bottle of JD to the person who booed him most loudly.
Would go again, loved it.