Date: 14th July 2006
Supported By: Lots of bands!
With its affably eclectic lineup, ‘alternative’ accommodation options (if tents are too last year for you, choose between a caravan and something that resembles a cross between a wendy house and a kennel) and a site that is picturesque to the point of tweeness, the Latitude festival perfectly suits the sort of well-scrubbed Guardian-reading family that has increasingly come to appreciate the pleasures of fields, bands whose records you’ll never buy, and overpriced veggieburgers in the past few years – a sort of miniature Glastonbury, minus those intriguing but slightly upsetting crusty characters.
Tucked away on the Suffolk coast near archetypal decaying seaside town Southwold, the beautiful festival site offers deckchairs on the banks of a river, carefully positioned decorative touches (even the sheep have been dipped in different colours), and plenty of mysterious little stages tucked away down meandering forest paths, all serving to create a fairytale atmosphere only mildly marred by the feeling of artificiality; overall, proceedings feel confusingly similar to a trip to Alton Towers, with the hedonistic rush of Oblivion replaced by the, er, hedonistic rush of a Mercury Rev show.
Things get off to a slow start on Friday, with Snow Patrol’s unlikely transition from indie chancers to stadium heroes clearly wobbling under the pressure of their headline set. Inexplicably, the festival organisers have chosen to put the two largest stages in marquees, with the result that a lineup including several acts who thrive on that playing-while-the-sun-sets magic (Patti Smith and Mercury Rev, to name a couple) is denied the chance to create a truly memorable atmosphere. Still, Snow Patrol plough through their big ones (Light Up, and that one that sounds like My Bloody Valentine) and the crowd trudge away satisfied enough. The sets end early here, however – around eleven – so while a grumbling swarm of children is put to bed, the rest of us stumble about, alternately dancing to the soulful fare blasting out of a few of the stages or listening to Howard Marks wheeling out his tired tales of drug-running exploits in the Literary Arena.
Musically, Saturday is initially not a great improvement. Tipped French popster Camille treats us to a tourettes-inspired display of yelping, enthusiastic charm in the afternoon, but her endearing stage presence is let down by the mixture of bland ‘world’ music and pedestrian early-90s dance that she backs her songs with, while Last Town Chorus offer an efficient take on what might be termed ‘space-country’ – the reverb-soaked, melancholy lap-steel balladeering which Brightblack and Ella Guru have explored in recent years, with mixed results – but fail to hold the crowd’s attention. In the end, it takes an old master to finally wake things up. When Patti Smith takes the stage with Lenny Kaye to rapturous applause, there is a sense that someone who really knows how to work an overheated, stupefied festival crowd has finally arrived, and she doesn’t disappoint; after all these years, Smith seems as enthusiastic and serious about her business as ever, and she isn’t too proud to play the songs the crowd want to hear – particularly Because the Night and the evergreen Gloria, which predictably gets the whole crowd singing along to its frenetic climax. It takes a while to calm down for headliners Antony and the Johnsons, and even Antony himself confesses to getting rather overexcited to Smith’s set – “I had to be revived with smelling salts,” he quips – but once that astounding, uncanny voice begins drifting through the air, the crowd are transfixed, and a set of haunting, arrestingly beautiful songs passes almost without our noticing. Antony has adapted remarkably well to his post-Mercury prize fame in this country, and a headline slot even above Patti Smith makes perfect sense tonight; he even offers more banter than perhaps anyone else over the weekend, my favourite bit being his routine on the queen’s waving technique (“elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist”).
A few hangovers are presumably being nursed on Sunday afternoon, judging by the poor turnout for The 1990s, the latest venture from John McKeown (of Yummy Fur fame), but the band are in excellent spirits nonetheless. McKeown seems unreasonably grateful for the enthusiastic applause with which the two rows of dedicated fans greet each song, and his attitude, combined with The 1990s’ refreshing take on indie rock, creates a jovial atmosphere. While The Yummy Fur dedicatedly poked about in the realms of spiky twin-guitar Beefheart-inspired indie riffage, McKeown has evidently seen their demise as an excuse to show off his solo axe skills; given the space that The 1990s’ bouncy rhythm section provides, he weedles his way through crunching, frantic and endlessly entertaining solos whenever the opportunity arises, and emerges as something approaching a young Tom Verlaine – fittingly enough, since the man himself is on later. Before that, however, another revelation is in store, this time from stoner-rock quartet Part Chimp. On record, this Sleep and Kyuss-inspired outfit, signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action label, have so far failed to inspire, chiefly let down by irritatingly grainy production; on stage, however, their sound is transformed into a seismic, towering assault, with swathes of thuggish hallucinogenic power chords terrorising the bewildered crowd. The apocalyptic set is difficult for Tom Verlaine to follow, and his delicate ambient guitar excursions seem somehow superficial in this context. For many revellers, his meanderings are the cue to have a rest by the river before the twin pillars of Mercury Rev and Mogwai attempt to bring things to a dramatic close.
The decision to have two of the most pompous bands currently around following each other on the final night was perhaps something of a gamble, and it doesn’t pay off. Swathed in so much smoke that they are barely visible, Mercury Rev take to the stage and launch into You’re My Queen, reinterpreted as an eight-minute wig-out for the stadium crowd, but despite their obvious intention to give the fans what they want, there is a nagging air of desperation about proceedings. Jonathan Donahue is heroically histrionic, all Shakespearean poses and flapping arms, but his unsettling resemblance to an emaciated cross between Stuart Murdoch and Darcy from Neighbours seems somehow to undermine his efforts. Ever since their career-defining Deserter’s Songs, Mercury Rev have been obsessed with the saccharine and fairytale, but those elements have wobbled dangerously close to kitsch and delusion following the release of the mediocre Secret Migration LP last year, and there is more than a hint of the tragedy that beset the adult Judy Garland about Donahue tonight, his body language betraying his frustration at Mercury Rev’s inability to regain the magical heights of the late 90s. Mogwai’s set is less disturbing, but equally disappointing; the continuing stellar success of their plodding, predictable instrumental fare remains one of the mysteries of experimental music in the last few years, and in this context – closing a glowingly amiable celebration of the joys of summer – their music is more befuddlingly stodgy than ever. Still, nobody lets it spoil things. Darkness has barely fallen when their pointless squalling ceases, and the Latitude site offers plenty of nocturnal adventures to round off a fun and slightly surreal weekend…
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