Without wanting to turn this space into a shameless plug for Uncut, I’d just like to point you in the direction of the blogs the Uncut team has been posting on www.uncut.co.uk over the weekend from the Latitude festival.
John, Michael and Farah were onsite from the start and at the time of writing the latter pair are still on their way back from the verdant beauty of Henham Park, on the Suffolk coast.
I was stuck in Uncut HQ on Friday, so didn’t make it down to the festival until Saturday. Which means, of course, that I missed a number of bands I’d really wanted to see, including Wilco on the main stage and Tinariwen who blew the top off the Uncut arena tent, which every time I went near it was packed. The overspill meant there were plenty of Uncut readers milling around on the periphery, happy to chat enthusiastically about the festival, which we all agreed was uncommonly civilised.
A number of readers I spoke to were veterans of Reading and Glastonbury and I met one who had been at the ghastly Buxton festival I mentioned in my Rod Stewart blog. None of us had experienced a festival like this, and were grateful for the generally placid vibe and great music.
I could go on for some time about how brilliant The Hold Steady were, but won’t detain you with details. A lot of people thought The Good, The Bad And The Queen were maybe too sombre a musical proposition to headline on the Saturday, and they had a point. But there were some striking moments in their set, even if you wished the day’s events were climaxing with something perhaps more rousing – some old stager like Rod, belting out a stirring string of greatest hits, would have doubtless lifted the crowd rather more euphorically than The GTB&TQ’s more studied seriousness.
In which context, it was good to hear that the Arcade Fire were suitably loosened up enough to deliver a fittingly riotous climax to the festival.
Anyway, for more on Latitude and the bands who made it such a great success, get over now to https://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/index.php?blog=11