I spent the Weekend at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk. It’s the 3rd year for this most idiosyncratic of festivals, merging as it does dance, music, theatre, poetry and cinema. If I mention that The National Theatre, Blondie, Irvine Welsh, Crystal Castles, Radio 4’s Just a Minute, hip hop dancing, Franz Ferdinand, Bill Bailey and silent black and white 1920’s films were all on show then you’ll get some idea of the eclectic nature.
Sigur Ros were probably my highlight. They headlined the main Stage on Saturday. I listened to a couple of their albums before going and frankly didn’t really get it, but having seen them live I can now confirm them to be glorious. I think they’ve just announced a UK tour and would recommend anyone go and see them.
Singer and actress Soko was a nervous wreck but all the more beguiling for it. She’s 22, French and sings songs like this: http://www.myspace.com/mysoko
Metronomy were joyous, they played in the Sunrise Arena which was an idyllic venue situated amongst the flora and fauna of the Latitude forest. They are re-mixers par excellence having twisted a few knobs for Kate Nash, Franz Ferdinand and the Klaxons. They seem to get bracketed into the math rock sub, sub, sub, sub genre whatever that is, either way they are great fun and got everyone leaping about. Fans of mathematics and rock can enjoy this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock
An honourable mention for Crystal Castles a truly wonderful band from Toronto. Alice Glass is their mascara laced singer. Here’s a picture: http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/0/2/3/2/18412320-18412322-slarge.jpg
She was nearly hauled off the Glastonbury stage in June for clambering on a speaker stack. At Latitude she repeated her antics, this time jumping into the photographers pit and launching herself towards the crowd. She was repeatedly hauled out by security probably fearing that she was going to get swallowed up. One particular sortee saw her bash someone over the head with her microphone (I think they’d tried to tamper/grab her). Infantile hands aside, this was another triumph from Alice and friends. I do worry about her a bit though. It can’t be good for you all that shouting and jumping about. Here’s some shonky old footage of Crystal Castles playing Latitude that you can’t really see or hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6uKTxaqXbE
Saddlers Wells layed on a series of splendid world class dance performances in particular the Boy Blue Entertainment hip hop group and Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance Company who jolted their way through what looked like a bone crunching 25 minutes of contemporary dance. All the dance events were layed out next to the Latitude lake, a beautiful setting which managed to attract huge swathes of enthusiastic audiences.
Finally, Joanna Newsome set just the right tone on Sunday afternoon plucking her way through highlights from her two albums and then treating the audience to a couple of new tracks. Here’s some dreadfully wonky footage of some cloud + a bit of Joanna playing the piano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-WUiCfKZY
Simon Armitage, one time Friday Night Hijacker also read from his book ‘Gig: the Life and Times of a Rock Star Fantasist book.’
Dan. (...enjoying spending his weekends in fields...)
Sigur Ros were probably my highlight. They headlined the main Stage on Saturday. I listened to a couple of their albums before going and frankly didn’t really get it, but having seen them live I can now confirm them to be glorious. I think they’ve just announced a UK tour and would recommend anyone go and see them.
Singer and actress Soko was a nervous wreck but all the more beguiling for it. She’s 22, French and sings songs like this: http://www.myspace.com/mysoko
Metronomy were joyous, they played in the Sunrise Arena which was an idyllic venue situated amongst the flora and fauna of the Latitude forest. They are re-mixers par excellence having twisted a few knobs for Kate Nash, Franz Ferdinand and the Klaxons. They seem to get bracketed into the math rock sub, sub, sub, sub genre whatever that is, either way they are great fun and got everyone leaping about. Fans of mathematics and rock can enjoy this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock
An honourable mention for Crystal Castles a truly wonderful band from Toronto. Alice Glass is their mascara laced singer. Here’s a picture: http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/0/2/3/2/18412320-18412322-slarge.jpg
She was nearly hauled off the Glastonbury stage in June for clambering on a speaker stack. At Latitude she repeated her antics, this time jumping into the photographers pit and launching herself towards the crowd. She was repeatedly hauled out by security probably fearing that she was going to get swallowed up. One particular sortee saw her bash someone over the head with her microphone (I think they’d tried to tamper/grab her). Infantile hands aside, this was another triumph from Alice and friends. I do worry about her a bit though. It can’t be good for you all that shouting and jumping about. Here’s some shonky old footage of Crystal Castles playing Latitude that you can’t really see or hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6uKTxaqXbE
Saddlers Wells layed on a series of splendid world class dance performances in particular the Boy Blue Entertainment hip hop group and Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance Company who jolted their way through what looked like a bone crunching 25 minutes of contemporary dance. All the dance events were layed out next to the Latitude lake, a beautiful setting which managed to attract huge swathes of enthusiastic audiences.
Finally, Joanna Newsome set just the right tone on Sunday afternoon plucking her way through highlights from her two albums and then treating the audience to a couple of new tracks. Here’s some dreadfully wonky footage of some cloud + a bit of Joanna playing the piano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-WUiCfKZY
Simon Armitage, one time Friday Night Hijacker also read from his book ‘Gig: the Life and Times of a Rock Star Fantasist book.’
Dan. (...enjoying spending his weekends in fields...)
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