There's a term for a person who knowingly and consensually allows another person to inflict pain on them, and from this day forth they shall be known as Black Lips fans. The Sunrise Arena was filled with teenage boys and I was in front of them at the coveted front of stage spot. The four-piece from Atlanta, Georgia started out inauspiciously, a problem with an amp meant guitarist Ian Saint Pé couldn't join the rest of the band who had already begun to play a thunderous blues riff. While the crowd grew restless I noticed how comfortable they seemed improvising, the unpredictable Cole Alexander on lead guitar filling in with guttural noises and wild runs up the fretboard. As soon as they began the crowd went balls-out nuts, rushing the stage, throwing cans and all-but stoving each others faces in. But the sound was incredible - surf guitar riffs shredded to pieces, three-way vocals from Alexander, Jared Swilley on bass and drummer Joe Bradley delivered with a pissy, punk attitude. When they played 'Oh Katrina' and 'Buried Alive' from last year's Good, Bad, Not Evil things got totally out of hand and crowd surfers started assaulting their way to the front and jumping up and down as one sweaty, hormonal mass, me included. Which is when an unidentified foot land sharply on mine causing me to scream profanities and gain more social acceptance from the people around me. But that's what you get at a Black Lips show: it's the unspoken rule that you may have to pay with a limb. It reminded me of another four-piece who inspired such hysteria, and who also had a singer playing a Hoffner violin bass. The kids are definitely onto something here... NAT DAVIES

As I’m nearing the main stage, a mournful funeral wail of a riff starts up, soon to be joined by stiff drums and icy synth. If Sigur Ros hadn’t started their set with “Svefn-G-Englar” last night, it would surely be the most doomy headline set opener of the festival. Of course, it's Interpol. The New Yorkers are certainly an iconic band, kitted out in black suits and bathed in red light throughout the set. I remember an NME article from years ago where bassist Carlos D talked about his favourite tailor. During the intro to one song, frontman Paul Banks wanders around stage smoking like a movie star. It’s not hard to see this is a vain band. However, they’ve got the moves to support their vanity. Tracks like “No I In Threesome” and “Evil” might take equally from The Strokes, Television and Joy Division (the latter in Paul Banks’ vocals especially), but the band are good enough musicians to avoid the pitfalls of Editors and their ilk; at no point do their songs fall into parody. The group put on quite a show – they seem to be the only band this weekend who have used projected backdrops and so galaxies swirl and stars flash behind the group as they go through the none-more-moody “Rest My Chemistry”. Daniel Kessler’s guitarwork is extraordinary throughout the set, providing some necessary texture behind the metronomic bass and flickering hi-hats without ever appearing unsubtle. He uses reverb and echo rhythmically without sounding too much like The Edge too, no mean feat. As the rain comes down, the fans in front of the stage only clap harder and punch their fists evem harder. Without almost any mainstream hits or much in the way of mass press support, and no real anthems as such, Interpol seem to have pulled it off. No sign of Banks’ girlfriend Helena Christensen, though. Damn. After Arctic Monkeys and Geoff Hoon, Latitude could have scored another tick on the celebrity list. Maybe next year. Tom Pinnock

“Given though this is a family affair, we all know someone who’s a meth head or a speed freak,” thus it is that Kim Deal endears herself to the good ladies and gentlemen of Latitude. There’s something pleasingly haphazard about The Breeders, a certain held-together-with-gaffer-tape charm that Deal seems happy to coast along on tonight. Dressed in an orange San Diego t-shirt, she has the warmth and smiley charm of one of the slightly kookier mothers out in the audience. Her banter is frequently hilarious, which adds to the happy-go-lucky fun of the set. Here she is on sister Kelley’s violin skills: “When she practises it, the dog actually gets up and leaves the room.” She cracks jokes at the expense of her band mates geographical locations (much faux derision reserved for Florida) and, when she asks the sound mixer to turn up the on-stage guitar levels, she says: “More kick. But not like a credit card heavy metal kick.” Quite. They race through 18 songs in a little under an hour; first song, “No Aloha”, drifting in out from the soundcheck and lasting approximately 1 minute 25 seconds. It’s all sort of a shambles, but beyond the banter and apparent sloppiness (the band constantly look like they’re about to fall about in fits of laughter), there’s a fierce seriousness to the songs themselves. “Here No More”, for instance, features some striking harmonies from the Deal sisters and a soft, melancholic beauty. There is, you might correctly assume, little in the way of beauty from Grinderman. Instead, there's much febrile energy and bloody-minded raucousness on display, which is fine with me. They open with “Depth Charge Ethel”, Nick Cave leering and prowling and snarling his way round the stage. As Warren Ellis proceeds to smash everything in sight (he is, technically speaking, on effects and vibes tonight, with occasional forays on his trusty Mandocaster), I realise this is far and away the most energetic performance I’ve personally witnessed at Latitude this year. Here’s four men, none of whom presumably are going to see the right side of 40 again, dressed in suits that make them look like Latino hustlers, burning up the stage. They’re totally lost in the spirit of rock. It’s brilliant. As for banter? Let’s say, Cave does not disappoint. “You’re all beautiful people,” he addresses the crowd, before pointing somewhere in the throng. “Especially you. Are you a man, or a woman? It’s so fucking hard to tell these days. You, with the rabbit ears. You’ll make someone a lovely husband one day. Especially at Easter.” B-dum, tish. There’s one new song, “Dream” (“like when you’re fucking… asleep,” explains Cave), which, as good as it is, seems to share a vocal melody with U2’s “One”. Still, as an indication of where Grinderman may go next, it signals a more conventional approach to songwriting. Led by a spiralling guitar riff from Ellis, and some delicate organ-playing from Cave, it’s surprisingly… poppy, I have to say. As gun-metal grey skies seethe overhead and the weather threatens to misbehave, Grinderman launch into the squall of “When My Love Comes Down To Meet You”, and Cave lashes one of his most memorable lyrics out on the cheering audience: “Your skin is like the falling snow your hair is like the rising sun, Your tongue is like Kalashnikov or some other foreign gun”. Cheers, Nick. Proof, I guess, that age doesn’t dim the lust for rock’n’roll. Chaps. Long may you snarl.

The good folk of Latitude are becoming more lucid and lyrical, as guest blogger Terry Staunton has discovered... 1. "I've embraced the concept of time, it's just that I'm not very good at telling it right now." 2. "Buying a brownie from an unshaven man in a field requires a leap of faith I'm not prepared to take." 3. "Unless you're fully committed to shitting, you'd be better off following me to the piss tent." 4. "The thing about being friends with Tap is that no matter how many drugs you take, you'll never reach his level of banality." 5. "My dad's off his face again, but at least he's nowhere near his Van Morrison CDs." 6. "That poet was talking about having a rhyming dictionary. Isn't that cheating? What a fuckin' fraud." 7. "I'm going to an STD clinic when I get home. I'm sure I've caught something off that toilet seat." 8. "Heart Of Glass got me through my exams, losing my virginity and leaving home. Their later stuff was bollocks, though." 9. "Seriously, I thought it was called Ricky Pedia. I assumed it was a bloke with a really popular MySpace page." 10. "I love it here. I was worried that it might be overrun by the sandals and henna brigade, but I can cope with them when they're a healthy minority." TERRY STAUNTON

Here's some lists compiled by the UNCUT collective here at Latitude. Our favourite t shirt slogans: * FAC 51: The Hacienda Must Be Built * Save Water - Drink Beer * Who The Fuck Are The Peth? * Dan's Stag Weekend * Acid Haus (we saw about six of these, all told) * Make Compost Not Bombs * A rather nice paisley print of Arthur Lee's head Random things we spotted in the market area, and how much they cost: * "Amazing 7 layers multi-coloured ra-ra skirt" -- £29.99 * Tibetan "yackets" -- £25 * Ibiza capellis -- £5 * Thai head massage -- £17 for 20 mins, £24 for 30 mins * Tarot readings -- £10 * Spiritual doorbells -- £16

We are, of course, victims to the capricious whims of fate – particularly in relation to the wind and the tricksy way it displaces sound at festivals. You might, for instance, find yourself bewitched by some contemporary ballet going on down by the lake, only for the mournful hymns of a lone cellist who’s soundtracking the dance to be rudely drowned out by some shouty indie band on a nearby stage. But, I’m pleased to report, the fates are smiling kindly on us today. As I walk down to the Comedy Arena, past another finely choreographed pas de deux unfolding gracefully before me, the mellifluous harp of Joanna Newsom drifts ethereally across the lake, by way of a perfect accompaniment. Anyway, I rock up to the Comedy Arena, which is today hosting a pretty impressive roll call of performers. Typically, the tent’s completely packed, with as many people outside as there are in. This is for Phill Jupitus and his comedy improv, who today include Marcus Brigstocke (who John saw earlier hosting his Morning Edition in the Poetry Arena) and the increasingly ubiquitous Ross Noble. I make this his fourth appearance at Latitude this year – two recordings of Just A Minute, his own headline slot on Friday, and now here. As you’d expect with improv, it’s windy, rambling, and not all of it entirely works. But – as with their world premier of an unknown Shakespeare play – when it works it’s hysterical, the crowd’s laughter drowned out somewhat by Jupitus’ own, bear-like guffaw. Between comics, I mooch around a bit and spot Simon Armitage doing a signing session outside the Poetry Arena – with a massive queue stretching round the corner. There’s The IT Crowd’s Richard Ayoade strolling through the site in a grey sports jacket and beard. Then it’s back to the Comedy Arena for TV’s Frankie Boyle. It says something about Boyle’s status – utterly undeserved, I reckon – that he gets a full hour on the stage, while infinitely better comics, like Stewart Lee, are given a fairly desultory 30 minutes. Boyle, in case you’re lucky enough not to be familiar with his oeuvre, is a panellist on Mock The Week, just about the least funny excuse for a topical panel game you could ever have the misfortune to see. To give you some indication of the level of talent on display, Hugh Dennis is one of the team captains. Anyway, Boyle, free from the shackles of television, is a surprisingly foul-mouthed comic, with a rather tedious fixation with saying “fuck” every other word, and with a relish that I find increasingly disturbing after a while. His targets are unremarkable and predictable – Alastair Darling, the credit crunch, Barak Obama – and he stuns the crowd with a spectacularly ill-advised routine about Children In Need. Next up is Milton Jones, whose Radio 4 shows are gently whimsical fare, the kind of thing I’m happy to drift off to on its 11pm, weekday time slot. His stand up is gags and one-liners, all delivered in a moderately bemused, slightly curious manner by Jones. “My wife. It’s hard to say what she does. She sells sea shells on the sea shore… “ And on it goes. Right, back off out there. Hoping to catch Jupitus’ resurrecting his Porky the Poet alter ego, but I also want to see a bit of Glasvegas before the evening session of Breeders and Grinderman kicks off.

Our man in the battered cowboy hat, Terry Staunton, has been out earwigging on festival goers conversations. Here's his latest report from the frontline of Latitude... 1. "Joanna Newsom just reeks of Radio 4." 2. "I used to get pissed at festivals and snog strangers. These days I just go home with another vulgar poncho." 3. Man walking past Frankie Boyle's set: "Comedy's OK if you're one of those people who actually likes laughing." 4. "Jocasta! That's daddy's Yakult!" 5. "That girl's wearing an Avenged Sevenfold hoody. I think she's at the wrong festival." 6. "I seem to have bitten the inside of my mouth, but in an area that my own teeth can't reach." 7. "Caesar! Caesar! Have you seen Tallulah?" 8. "I like her for some reason. I think she could be up for a threesome." 9. "The trick is to eat at unusual times." 10. "If Kate Nash really is playing, I'm leaving the site right now." TERRY STAUNTON

It is so quiet in the big field by Latitude’s main stage that you can hear the flags that surround the arena fluttering in the breeze. This is Joanna Newsom’s first solo show in an age, she’s palpably, gigglingly nervous, and she’s playing a bunch of new songs. Pretty brave. First, though, we get some of the highlights of the extraordinary Californian harpist’s first two albums: “The Book Of Right-On”, “Sadie”, an incredibly moving version of “Emily”. These are songs I’ve played more than virtually any others in the past few years, and yet they still stop me in my tracks, have a new resonance and impact every time. “Emily”, it’s worth noting, doesn’t miss the gorgeous orchestrations supplied by Van Dyke Parks on “Ys” – even the filigree coda is just as moving when she plucks it out on her harp. This show, though, is of most interest – beyond the pleasure, of course, of seeing one of the world’s greatest singer-songwriters in harmoniously bucolic surroundings – for the unveiling of a clutch of new Joanna Newsom songs. The first, not strictly new, proves to be something of a red herring, being “Colleen” from last year’s “Joanna Newsom And The Ys Street Band” EP, and a feisty, playful Celtic twister, complete with ecstatic hiccups from the singer. For the three new songs, however, retreats to a grand piano. It might be unwise to imagine that this is how they will eventually turn out on record; I seem to remember her playing “Ys” songs, long before they were recorded, in a similar way at a Queen Elizabeth Hall gig some years ago. But the most obvious shift is that these are slightly less tricksy, and with a pronounced soul rather than folk influence. Two of them remind me a lot today of Laura Nyro, especially the magnificent gravity of “New York Tendaberry”. There’s one, especially, that could be called “Down In California”, with bluesy piano rolls, some passing mention of a fox that eats her goldfish, and a key line, “If I lose my head, where am I gonna leave it?” The third, which for the purposes of this blog I’m going to call “Meet Me In The Garden Of Eden”, brings to mind one of the default comparisons for Newsom, Kate Bush, specifically “Army Dreamers”. I’m not convinced she’s ever written a catchier song. Then it all goes enchantingly haywire. Some minutes into a ravishing “Sawdust And Diamonds”, there’s some clanking backstage which knocks her off her course and makes her nerves come to the fore. There soon ensues a sequence of giggles and embarrassed asides, as she keeps forgetting the labyrinthine lyrics and requires prompting by the audience. “You really shouldn’t clap,” she says when she brings it to a premature end, mortified. Everyone in the massive crowd does anyway. Not least because a woman often stereotyped as some ethereal, supernatural creature has usefully proved herself human. But also because these songs and this performance have such strength, suppleness and emotional heft that they sustain their potency even as the singer seems to be disintegrating before our eyes. Look, I know I keep doing this, but I’m going soon, so I can say now with certainty: the best thing I’ve seen at Latitude.

A first trip round the site this morning. There's a huge queue waiting to see Hanif Kureishi. Someone is performing a play under a tree to a audience of four sleeping men. And, apparently, one of the most powerful men in Britain is here at Latitude. Um, it's Geoff Hoon. Or so Marcus Brigstocke and Phil Jupitus claimed, while they were reviewing the Sunday papers and casting slanderous aspersions on the character of Seasick Steve. They've suggested that if we spot Hoon, we should crouch down behind his back and start following him round, until a thousand or so people are clandestinely trailing the great man. Not sure if this is actually going to happen, but we'll see. Oh, and apparently there were some zombies out and about last night. Not connected.

So it's official, then. The song of choice for nocturnal dancing shenanigans is Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", which I've heard something like six times at various locations over the last two nights. Last night, it was at the Lake Stage, courtesy of My Ex Boyfriends' Records, and then in the Sunrise Arena, being played by the chaps at Feeling Gloomy. I assume Sean Rowley also played it, over at Guilty Pleasures, but to be honest I didn't make it that far out into the site last night. And anyway, there was a Bugsy Malone theme at Guilty Pleasures, and I clean forgot to bring my spats with me. 5 records played by My Ex Boyfriend's Records DJs between midnight and 1 am: * Blur, "Girls And Boys" * R Dean Taylor, "There's A Ghost In My House" * Ray Parker Jnr, "The Theme From Ghostbusters" * The Bangles, "Walk Like An Egyptian" * The Cure, "Lovecats" It was, you can perhaps conclude from the above list, a li'l bit indie, a li'l bit Eighties' chart pop. In fact, these two strands seem to have provided the predominant musical agenda of the night. Everywhere I go, it's like an Eighties' indie school disco, the New York mix of The Smiths' "This Charming Man" blaring out from speakers at all points between lake and woods, DJs from nights like Feeling Gloomy and Club Fromage (no, really) seeming to have entirely interchangeable sets. The biggest surprise is that no one plays The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary", which I thought'd be a shoe-in at this kind of thing. I guess it's interesting that the demographic for Guilty Pleasures is mid-late thirties, while here in the woods it's a distinctly younger crowd. Nostalgia for the kind of Seventies music Guilty Pleasures play conspicuously doesn't resonate with an early-mid twenties audience. Anyway, I think it's time to clear my head with a stroll down to the Comedy Arena, for Phill Jupitus And Friends -- who last year included Stoke Newington's favourite irate Liberal, Marcus Brigstocke. Wonder who the guests will be this year...

Once again, it falls to me to provide the first list of the day, folks. A trememndous day here yesterday, which involved Nicholas Parsons, a brass band and a really interesting millipede. Oh, and some groups. Here we go. . . 1. Elbow. "Newborn". Lots of pink clouds at dusk. A classic, epic, soppy festival moment. 2. "Just A Minute" in the Radio 4 tent. Nicholas Parsons said a rude word! 3. Sigur Ros beginning their son et lumiere extravaganza with their immortal debut single, "Svefn-G-Englar". "ITCHEE-EE-OO!" 4. The wind. Ensured we only got soaked three times, but very briefly. 5. The Arctic Monkeys turning up on site and providing a great festival rumour. Are they playing a secret gig? Er, not that we found. 6. The Arctic Monkeys' labelmates Wild Beasts nearly stealing the whole show with a dangerous combination of waistcoats, '80s romance, falsettos and shorts. 7. The Fairey Band playing the hits of Acid House on euphoniums and tubas. The funkiest drummer at Latitude, too. 8. The Mars Volta being too prog even for Bill Bailey, who abandoned ship after ten minutes. He should've stuck around for their Sonics cover. 9. The House Of Love, eerily unchanged from their late '80s heyday; a reunion that deserves almost as much attention as the My Bloody Valentine one. 10. The insect nature trail in the woods. I found a millipede with a brown stripe that even the bloke from Suffolk Wildlife Trust failed to identify. . .