Latitude Festival (15-17 July 2010)

Preview by Joy Thomas

WAHOOOP! It’s here again! Only when the sun comes out and the leaves reappear on the trees does the idea of Latitude Festival seem possible and not some crazy sun-starved daydream.

Oh, to revel in the memories of last year: Grace Jones changing her hat for every single song she performed; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds changing my beloved’s sartorial preferences (he couldn’t get over how cool a suit could look…); whiling away time under the Tree of Lost Things; wasting valuable time in ill-chosen theatre shows; shrieking with laughter as the bad language of comedians was projected all over the family friendly site. And, oh! for us folkingcoolsters there was folk a-plenty: Emmy the Great, Lisa Hannigan singing through the pouring rain, Camera Obscura, The Broken Family Band, Newton Faulkner…

This year the Suffolk festival holds similar treats for folkies. You’ve got your organic bread and rich jersey-cow butter in the form of Richard ‘grumpy dreamboat’ Hawley, Laura Marling, The Unthanks and Mumford and Sons, all folkingcool favourites, yum yum yum. Folky-indie grouping Belle and Sebastian are headlining on Saturday night (though they haven’t played live together since sep 2006 so they might be a bit ropey: JOKE). Rodrigo y Gabriela up the pace with that speedy guitar playing that makes you want to tip-toe quickly diddly-um diddly-um tippytoe-tiptoe. Brooklyn-based Grizzly Bear are going to provide for the fans of pyschadelic folk/pop whilst is-she-real-or-is-she-a-magical-fairy Charlotte Gainsbourg will up the levels of sorcery already cast by the curators of Latitude Festival. Frank Turner will make me cry with The Queen is Dead (if he plays it which, of course, he might not) and Vampire Weekend will be singing about grammar and unusual architectural facets when they headline the Obelisk stage on Sunday. Gawd.

Basically, then, SCREAM! But, worry not if you are unlucky enough to suffer the indignity of having folked-off partners and families, for there’s MORE. Latitude is well known for being more than just a music festival, and giving fair space to all the arts. There’s poetry (including beloved Wendy Cope, kiss kiss) and literature (Bret Easton Ellis. Yoiks) and comedy (Emo Phillips AND Arthur Smith!), and cabaret (Cardinal Burns are the best sketch group I’ve seen in ages: catch them in a tent while you can). And there’s art and opera and ballet and over-earnest teenagers doing Important Dancing and and and… it’s just going to be ace.

Friday night’s headliner is lovely jubbly Florence and the Machine (ALWAYS referred to as ‘flame haried songstress Florence Welch’, somewhat disappointingly) and The Horrors are playing in the crazy big blue tent known as the Word Arena. These are obviously the names to drop if you’re telling cool people you’re going to a festival…

If I had athsma I’d be taking a few puffs of ventalin now. Don’t remind me of the fact that all the sheep are spray-painted pink and there are trippy projections on the lake or I’ll need a bloody defribulator.

Joy Thomas

For tickets call the credit card line on 0871 2310846 or go online:

www.festivalrepublic.com
www.seetickets.com
www.latitudefestival.co.uk