Woodland fun

Latitude
Suffolk
2008

Festivals: where else can you sit in a cloud of reefer smoke, deafened by loud music, surrounded by people in garish clothing at 8 in morning? Well Deptford train station as it turned out. In the midst of London’s most chilled plasterers, randomly listening to music on their speaker phones , clad to a man in hi vis vest, was me lumbering up the stairs with my rucksack, off to the estuary to wait for a lift, while an old gaffer did slight of hand tricks with coins. My friends arrived before he could explain how he lost his eye!

You see festivals are another world after all, in this case "Latitude "which is in Suffolk (which after 20 years in the south I now know is the one near Essex and not the one, Sussex where Brighton is).

Latitude is near Southwold and the sea of which we got glimpses on the way down. We stopped on the way at the world’s nicest Budgens having already seen an airship there was the chance we were going back in time. Thankfully Latitude is very now.
It is meant to be the most middle class of festivals but as I’ve said before listening to rock music in fields is by definition a middle class pursuit (for good or ill and I haven’t got time for a long piece on Britain’s relationship with Arcadia…). I think this (pejorative) tag comes largely because it’s near Southwold and that it’s not just drunk teenagers who go to it.

It seemed a relatively normal festival; you had to hike across fields with your kit, put up your tent up in the rain, queue to get in, pay too much for beer etc. Some of the food was organic (the only noticeable difference with organic chips is that you get less of them), but you can still get donuts and pies, so some things don’t change.

One noticeable thing about Latitude is that a range of ages attend, families with toddlers but also older people with their kids and on their own, which is all to the good.
In fact down the front at Sigur Ros was like night school for 16 years olds with us explaining who The Ros were to some worried girls (they didn’t want to get moshed again) while another older guy was showing a yoof how to use his Hubble telescope of a camera!

Anyway the compactness of the site was great, making nipping round easy and also bumping into your mates more likely. The sylvan setting is nice particularly at night when you can see glimpses of “happenings” beneath the branches.

We had a great time, we got sunburnt and frozen, had a laugh, had a cry, occasionally had a nap, some people danced until dawn, others nattered on about obscure novels and the pipkins. The House of Love took us back in time, grinder man got medieval with our ass, there were loads of new bands who may be the future and some that might not see out the summer. And by Saturday evening it was just like every other festival lots of people having a good time in relaxed if slightly fuzzy way.
Oh and the toilets weren’t bad either.

for more pictures go here



High Lights:
Sigur Ros: The papers reviewer must have missed the ending and is in Icelandic cliché mode describing them as “glacial” and “downbeat” that for a band who had finale involving a marching band of dressed as Droogs, 5 madly dressed string player mashing on drums, a leader singer (Jonsi) dressed like Captain Mark Philps meets a turkey in a storm of exploding confetti, all to a sound track of feedback, mad drums and toy pianos.

Grinder man: top marks to the wildest of Nick Cave’ wildman Warren Ellis, few people can hit cymbals with maracas with such menace.

Elbow: Humanly brilliant as ever; as predicted “one day like this” is the feel good hit of the summer
The House of Love: a poem to beautifully lost chances
The Breeders: Cheery low-fi and endearing ramshackled fun.
Simon Armitage: funny and engaging and he finished with my poem of the year.
Milton Jones: Just plain funny
Interpol's NYC in the rain
Bunkhouse boys: surf twanging suited and booted music.
Great wooded location: do you hear rustling in the hedgerow
Nice seated area: where you can hang around late at night having a pint, putting the world to rights
Absolut Raspberri vodka: it grows on you and then warms your cockles.


Downsides
The random rain showers.
Julian Cope’s rotten self deluded show:
30 mins. late and then he only did 2 songs and spent the rest of the time ranting about paganism wearing a Nazi-looking cap
A lack of brown sauce at the breakfast stall
People with cameras waving them in front of you when you trying to watch bands

Having to go back to work