Audience

Beth Jeans Houghton tiptoes into the centre of Borders from behind a shelf of graphic novels, accompanied by her drummer. Wearing a black, almost-dinner dress that fans at her waist and a precarious pair of heels that could quite easily constitute a health and safety risk, her striking look is topped off by a yellow and blue striped hat with peak.

“Thank you, photographers,” says Nick Cave to the snappers in the pit in front of the stage, pointing to his right cheek. “Only print the ones from this side of my face.” It’s a rare moment of light-hearted banter, although he does later decline a punter’s song request, claiming the track in question has “too many chords for old men like us!”. It would appear he and The Bad Seeds are a little fatigued, after promoting Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! for the best part of 18 months, but they’ve still got just about enough in the tank to bring Latitude to a memorably electrifying close.

Latitude closed tonight with headline sets from two of America’s greatest dance bands.

The cult Glaswegians appear at Latitude!

I’d been telling anyone who’d listen over the last few weeks and more in the build-up to Latitude that New Jersey’s The Gaslight Anthem in the right circumstances might be the surprise hit of the festival, especially after headline-grabbing sets at Glastonbury and Hyde Park, where they were joined onstage by Bruce Springsteen, who in turn had Anthem frontman Brian Fallon share the spotlight with him and the E Street Band on “No Surrender”.

As the sky threatens to rain, we head into the safety of the Uncut tent to see Alela Diane.

There's less of the pushchairs and families at this year’s Latitude, but the site seems busier than ever - enough people to give Broken Records a pretty large crowd on the main Obelisk Arena stage.

Watching Spiritualized headline the UNCUT Arena at the end of Latitude day two, with an astonishing set of heavy, psychedelic noise, I’m reminded of the first and the last time I saw Jason Pierce play live.

Jason Pierce and co. pack out the Uncut Arena

I remarked yesterday of the rather neat symmetry that took me to Fever Ray and Bat For Lashes. Well, something similar has happened again this evening. This time, it’s White Lies and Doves, who followed each other at the Obelisk Arena and who both, in admittedly different ways, are exponents on a similar style of music.