Latitude highlights
It’s the small touches I like best about Latitude, like finding a full living room set, mantelpiece included, when wondering through the woods at night. I like the art works hanging from the trees, the pastel-coloured sheep and the ballet dancers and gondoliers on the lake. The festival took place last weekend in the grounds of stately home Henham Park in Suffolk. It’s storybook English countryside with green slopes and ancient trees and the sea just a few miles away. Oh, and there were some great bands on…
Yacht: – Yacht are one of the many plates kept spinning by Jona Bechtolt (also of eMu favourites The Blow.) Jona and his Yacht collaborator Claire Evans were utterly charming onstage and their fizzy electro-pop was both cute and twisted. Metronomy were in a similar vein, albeit a more Anglicised one. Apparently they have a really fun stage show. I wouldn’t know as I was jammed behind the mixing desk at that point.
dEUS: - I was very pleasantly surprised by dEUS. I’d always been a bit off them, based on nothing more than lingering prejudice due to an NME slating in about 1994. Having been guilt-tripped into seeing them (I was camping with a big dEUS fan), I was really impressed. They were much darker and more complex than I’d been expecting, with droning passages that vibrated across the main stage field before evaporating into the sky. I now have Pocket Revolution ready to listen to over the weekend.
The Breeders: - I went to Latitude with two female friends, as a sort of alterna-girly weekend away. The three of us were practically swooning at seeing some smart, seen-it-all women onstage and at the confirmation that there’s more to aspire to post-40 than a grim choice between ditzy Terri Hatcher and straight-edge Jacqui Smith. Please don’t think though that my entire appreciation of The Breeders was based on retro-Riot Grrrl sentiment though – they seriously rocked.
Sigur Ros: – I’d feel ripped off if I’d seen Sigur Ros and they weren’t beautiful. Beautiful is what they do. But on a dark blue night, on the edge of England, with the dry grass smell rising from underfoot… that, that was beautiful.
Grinderman: - I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more charismatic individual than Nick Cave. I think, were he so inclined, the man could persuade the sea to part. As it was he made do with commanding every eye flicker of around 10, 000 people. Grinderman were mesmeric in the truest sense of the word. Even just after they finished I had no idea what had gone on, just that they were wonderful and now that they’d stopped the world seemed a smaller place.
Slightly disappointed by: Blondie. I love Blondie and I hadn’t seen them live before. They were note perfect and it was still fun because, after all, they were playing a load of Blondie songs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling they were phoning it in a bit. Sadly lacklustre.
Most sensible on-stage banter: This award goes to Elbow, who showed great concern for the assembled crowd, telling them to ‘STAY HYDRATED!’ How sensible, how Elbow.
People-I-could-hear-but-not-see-whilst-struggling-to-put-up-not-one-but-two-tents-in-a-high-wind-on-Friday: British Sea Power. Gutted.
Wow, having never heard of dEUS before I have to say I was not only pleasantly surprised but downloading after only a few songs. Definitely my kind of music.
Also, I want your job. I want to go to music festivals for a living. Sigh.
I was there on Saturday and I shared your surprise at dEUS: they rocked in an intense way reminiscent of Bends-era Radiohead.
Completely agree about Sigur Ros: fabulous!
Seasick Steve went down well with the crowd, but not really my thing. Elbow were impressive too.
On the Uncut stage I was well impressed by young trio Golden Silvers, and I should mention the Beep Seals (featuring one of the guys out of Alfie) who were on the BBC Radio 1 sponsored Lake Stage - they sounded very good too!
Did you see those guys walking around late on with the morning suits and horses heads on?
I thought that maybe I’d had too much Aspall’s cider and ‘bespoke’ cigarettes by that point.
Sara – really happy you found something you like. I also feel I should atone for all those years of not liking dEUS by spreading the word now.
Phoney – wow – I can’t believe you were there! I’d have totally tried to meet up if I’d known (and you’d wanted to.) There are so few of us Dotters this side of the pond I’m always rather envious of those who get to meet up face-to-face. Wanted to see Beep Seals, but Friday had been rather full on, so we neglected them in favour of sitting down and drinking tea. I’m going to try and see them in London at some point though – nice to have another positive recommendation.
I did not see the horse head men, but I reckon they were real. I ran into a load of people I knew who were all dressed as Altern-8, masks, boiler suits and all.
dEUS is one of my all-time favorite bands. Pocket Revolution came out after the band took a lengthy hIATUS from recording and touring. Their newest album, Vantage Point, is very similar to Pocket Revolution. The dEUS records from the 1990’s are more noisy and varied, but there is a best-of called No More Loud Music that includes their essential singles, like Hotellounge and Instant Street. dEUS also has a channel on YouTube!
http://www.youtube.com/user/dEUSbe
I’ve been recommended dEUS before. have to check them out now!
As for Nick Cave he is god on stage. I don’t consider myself to be a huge fan of his music, touch base with him now and then but live – he – is – incredible! I totally got your review, I think I feel that way every time I see him.
BBC4 had him and the Bad Seeds play a live set about a month ago. Well worth watching!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/nickcave/
Hello. just another U.K. Dotter sticking his (rather grey) head out. I don’t know how many of us there are, but i think we should make our voices heard.
Haven’t seen Nick Cave live since 1990, but everything you say about him here was certainly true then as well. Makes me think maybe I should see him live again.