Its Monday afternoon. I returned from the Latitude festival yesterday evening. I enjoyed the festival although it was hard work for me. I was lucky to get family into the festival on guest tickets (just £20 charity donation for each one). I had a 'performers' ticket because I was working for Barry Adamson who was appearing in the BAFTA sponsored Film and Media tent late on Friday evening. My family made their own way there on Friday, while I picked up the band, crew and gear needed for the performance and drove everyone to the festival.After the show I drove through the night to return Barry and the band to their homes and the gear to its lock-up, catching a train back to Latitude on Satuday morning. I arrived at the festival just in time to miss Bill Bailey at the comedy tent. At that point though, nothing was as attractive as sleep. I awoke at about 6pm to enjoy the evening's festivities.
This is the third Latitude festival. I was there last year driving Joe Lean and the Jing, Jang, Jong - but didn't get much of a chance to explore. The festival's setting is beautiful. Its a mix of pasture and woodland with a lake separating the performance arenas from the campsites and stalls. The line-up is quite eclectic - they had Interpol headlining on Sunday, Sigur Ros on Saturday. Perhaps they could of done with a bit of Kaiser Cheifs or something. To be honest, I'm not a fan but sometimes after a few beers (ok, actually I was drinking red wine - and worse still I'd got it in a plastic bottle from Sainsburys)....... you need something that just pushes the right buttons and makes you want to sing along.
In fact, the festival was pretty much devoid of a live act that was very pop or chanty. And I missed it - funny thing though, they had a 70s/80's disco running in the woods on Saturday night - why? People gathered in a woodland in suffolk, under a full moon, and listening to YMCA ! I was hoping for a mix of trad folk and animal sacrifice. I think many people would applaud Festival Republic for being so 'left-field' in their bill - and I'm sure any criticisms would be band-aided with the claim that they were being brave. But I'm left feeling that being brave would actually have meant putting the Kaiser Chiefs and Interpol on the same bill. I suppose what I'm saying is that music's important, but I don't go to a festival to worship it. *We* go there for music to bring *us* together.
I spent a couple of hours at the comedy tent on Sunday around midday. Rufus Hound took the piss out of the festival being so middle-class. 'I'm not saying Latitude is middle class but.....' - I can't remember now, but he filled in the '........' with loads of witty stuff. He was funny. And right to take the piss. The tent next to ours had its own toilet housed in it's own 'outhouse' tent. Surely the point of a festival is to remind us that if we have enough time and forethought to provide ourselves with our own private portaloo tent - then we're not really living life. I expressed this view to my wife - she said that it'd 'be handy if you had litte 'uns'.
So I suppose its difficult to say. We each take out of these things what we want. Anyway, below you'll find a link to a slideshow from flickr - I went through the 'Latitude 2008' photos last night. And a link to a song I was playing while I viewed the photos. Enjoy!
My Favs from photos tagged 'Latitude 2008' on Flickr