LATITUDE FESTIVAL (VICE BLOGGER)
Henham Park, Suffolk, 17/07/2008 - 20/07/2008
Review by Lanre
Music, comedy, film, literature and poetry are all there. Every possible cultural itch is scratched.
The crowd turned out to be fairly mixed and was mostly made up of eco-families, students, old folk and yuppies.
After about two minutes of being there some guy handed me a flyer. It was for the Guillemots who were playing part of the score to Eraserhead in the Film & Music arena. That is about as confused as it gets. Who thought that was a good idea? That's like getting Ion Dissonance to do the score for the Lion King.
After making my way into the arena past the "Secret Wood" (woooo) and "Art Space" (yippee), I saw the Go Team! on the main stage. They were bouncing about, forcing everyone to do the most uncoordinated dancing you're likely to see. I felt bad for the dads who kind of had to do it or face looking like a spoilsport in front of their kids.
The art space had some interesting/sixth form art project style stuff going on. My favourite was 'Compulsery [sic] Moustache World'. There was so much going on in the afternoon it was hard to know which way to look. Everyone was swarming around the comedy tent for Bill Bailey and people were desperately trying to get an eyeful of Irvine Welsh and Hanif Kureshi.
I bumped into my homeboy Emeka who was working at the festival. He's going to try become a stand-up comic although he's not too sure how his Nigerian parents are going to take it. The first time I saw him he was wearing some Nazi-style boots, then the next day he appeared only wearing a pair of odd socks. I didn't see him again after that.
What happened to The Mars Volta? I remember when people used to go to their shows and scream their heads off. Now they're this prog supergroup who sound more and more like Fela Kuti everyday. They put on a decent show, but you can only take so much prog before your ears try to run off without you. I then went to see Sigur Ros who were amazing.
Joanna Newsom started the final day and sprinkled sunshine over everyone for about an hour. These New Puritans played later on but this crowd were just not angry/alienated enough to get into them.
Those Dancing Days and Esser were on form and the Black Lips completely destroyed the Sunrise Arena. It's weird seeing 14-year-old middle class kids singing: "Bad Kids product of no dad kids/ living life on the skids/ kids like you and me" when their dads are stood about three feet away making sure they don't get into any trouble.
All in all, Latitude was actually pretty good. I just hope Emeka got his boots back.
Review by Lanre 06/08/2008
