And so… a festival is born.
And we mean that. We don’t mean popped out of a packet, or plugged in, or market
profiled, concept pillaged and pushed into a park to sweat it out under an endless
series of branded banners. We’re thinking of something as romantic as an idea
allowed – encouraged, even – to blossom, finding its feet in a figurative (and
literal) clearing, falling flat on its face and stumbling forward regardless clutching
onto an unshakable smile. So the inaugural Latitude is a festival with
a wonky nose, but a festival retaining its own natural beauty nonetheless (plus it' ideal for a day in Great Yarmouth!)  And
that may be a surprising conclusion to reach, considering the belly of the beast
from whence it came. Mean Fiddler and Latitude overlord Melvyn Benn – with Reading
& Leeds (sorry, The Carling Weekend), Homelands, The Fleadh, the late Phoenix,
a portion of Glastonbury and most of the music venues in London under their collective
black belts – have the capability, profile and corporate ammunition to machine
manufacture whatever uber-festival revenue robot they please. Yet to find yourself
in the fertile countryside idyll of East Suffolk’s Henham Park (near Lowestoft), rambling through
woodland, past the pen of luminously dyed sheep, over the reed-lined bridge into
a spacious arena of tented stages milling disparately with content peoples, proves
this to be an inverse print of that assumption.
The sun shines. The sun really
shines. A lot. And this can only work in the festival’s favour, as with any festival,
but this one especially. With an estimated 12,000 weekend population, a few thousand
beneath capacity, its spacious grounds would have felt regrettably neglected without
punters scattered evenly by The Lake Stage – the only open air stage, at the heart
of the arena, showcasing lesser known and underappreciated talent (The Early
Years, Mugstar, The Voices, Darren Hayman, Get Cape.Wear
Cape. Fly) to drifters, cardboard-tray diners, casualties of indulgence and
sunbathers – and others ambling between the music, comedy, poetry, literary, cabaret
and theatre tents. The cavernous music tents are continually bereft of
audience, but this quickly and somewhat surprisingly becomes something to value.
It changes the whole pace of the festival, any dastardly urgency is siphoned off
through a gap in the Hessian-lined advert-free perimeter fence and sacrificing
your own personal space never becomes an issue. It really allows this to become
a personal experience, with conditions genuinely ripe for discovery, rather than
a tense logistical battle, a Krypton Factor challenge on location, as many other
festivals have a knack of becoming. And the line-up (ticket-shifting Friday
night headliner Snow Patrol aside) is intriguingly adventurous, securing
the tone further, featuring new and established, avant-garde, innovative, thoughtful
and just plain off-piste acts across all stages, rather than cordoned off in a
token minority interest stage at the back of the field. Those that do dally with
the mainstream (The Zutons for instance) at least have a handle on creativity
or a natural affiliation with the festival’s spirit. Musical highlights over the
weekend include the thrashingly grittily awesomely rough riffage of Archie
Bronson Outfit, the always reliable and increasingly underpinned British
Sea Power (foliage is of course present, and new song as soaring as buggery),
I Am Kloot’s iron-girder-through-Lennon’s-ear pop, the blissful angel-winged
gusts of jingle-indie from My Latest Novel, Part Chimp’s falling
down a chimney with Sonic Youth racket, Mugstar’s related art-rock textures, Patti
Smith proving herself to be the legend she is with the power and grace of
a woman half her age, in spite of some unfortunately off-target politicising (though
we’re damned if we can make out her meek voice in the Poetry Arena the following
afternoon), The Longcut’s surging post-rock-alt-disco and Absentee soundtracking
various Loony Toons with their radiant bittersweet indie in the very excellent
Music & Film tent at Sunday lunchtime.  Stage
times are staggered, finishing times vary and headliners are designed to succeed
each other, which is an interesting idea – there’s entertainment from 10am through
to 3am, but no one stage runs for the duration, encouraging movement and variety
and giving this festival its backbone – but whether it worked perfectly in this
year’s configuration is up for debate. All music tents finish before the main
Obelisk Arena, giving the headliners a clear run, the day a focus, and attracting
the biggest crowds. (Incidentally, Anthony & The Johnsons wooed all present
with an immaculately trembling set of delicate class and Sunday’s double-header
of Mercury Rev rammed up to the hilt with theatricality, wonder and hellfire
and Mogwai stomping their scuffed size 11 steel toe caps with as much clout
as we’ve ever seen them, was quite magic). That set-up makes sense, but curtailing
comedy in the late afternoon? Not so.
After-hours does have a gorgeously
integrated, unscripted, community feel to it though. The Poetry Arena continues
and finds Crud rapturously appreciating words without musical accompaniment on
many occasions for the first time (don’t ask us for names), as does the Sex-Off
in the Literary Arena (essentially book-folk pitting bad sex literatures against
even worse – Tin Tin loses his virginity, indeed!), we find a random stoner metal
band playing in the undergrowth by the bridge in the dark at one point (they’re
gone when we return) and cap off Saturday night with ghost story hour till 3am,
which actually turns out to be random intoxicated sorts telling bad stories and
dribbling in order to be rewarded with a shot of Jack Daniels, and is actually
a lot of fun. We mean to but never make it to the Cabaret or Theatre Arenas. There
are misgivings, of course there are. Scheduling could be rethought, food stalls
could be more plentiful, locally sought or less standard, as the implied temperament
of the festival suggests, same with crafts or a market place or stalls of interest.
Though respecting the inevitable, the sound bleed between tents differing in style
could do with addressing, as could the sound quality in the main arena which is
frequently lacking, abysmally so, ruining a perfectly good set by Guillemots
in particular, robbing them of their muscle and extremes. But if there’s a little
to criticise in body, it has a clean slate on spirit. They’ve taken a seed from
Glastonbury and planted it in different soils and a smaller plot. It doesn’t have
its profile or strength, it has its accessories, and some of its mannerisms. But
importantly it has its own vision. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but then the nearby
village of Uggeshall perhaps was in a year. July 2007 won’t be so long now. Relevant
sites:
http://www.latitudefestival.co.uk
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2006©
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|
| 01/06 Morning After Girls Interview
01/06 The Roger Sisters Interview
01/06 The Spinto Band Interview
01/06 The Longcut Interview
01/06 Union of Knives Interview
01/06 7/7 July Bombings London
01/06 Adem / Tunng - Live - West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
01/06 Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - 40th Anniversary Deluxe CD / DVD
01/06 Broken Social Scene - London Astoria
01/06 Camden Crawl 2006
01/06 Editors - LIve - Brixton Academy
01/06 Elliott Kennedy - Song Meanings
01/06 Four Day Hombre Interview
01/06 Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel DVD
01/06 Hot Chip Live - LIve - Caberte Volatire - Edinburgh
01/06 Jackson Analogue, Digital, Newcastle
01/06 Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Beccles, Suffolk
01/06 Liam Frost - Live - Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Little Man Tate, Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Monty Python Remastered Collection
|  | 01/06 New Pornographers / Spoon - Live - London Koko
01/06 NME Shows 2006
01/06 Orange Lights - Carling Academy, Newcastle
01/06 Protokoll - Live - Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
01/06 Shout Out Louds - Live - Leeds, Cockpit
01/06 Airlines, Flights, Terror Plot July 2006
01/06 The National - Brixton Academy, London
01/06 Wireless Festival 2006
January 2001
July - August 2001
September - October 2001
November - December 2001
January - March 2002
April - July 2002
August - December 2002
January - March 2003
May - August 2003
November 2003
January - March 2004
April - September 2004
October - December 2004
January - March 2005
April - December 2005
January - August 2006
September - December 2006
January - September 2007
October - December 2007
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