The Nobler Edge

The Second in Miwsig’s Summer Festival series takes in Suffolk’s Latitude

Putting this series together for Miwsig, I think I’m evolving a healthy philosophy of the modern festival scene. With Glastonbury and the usual suspects maybe forming the “establishment” to whatever extent that word can be used, there’s an underbelly below teeming to varying degrees with ambition, business nous, and genuine passions.

Suffolk’s Latitude sits there on the nobler edge of commercial success, mirroring Glastonbury in its multi-cultural sentiments and organic pretensions, while sharing the same fresh and inspired approach to their musical line-up as newcomers like Salisbury’s End of the Road. I’m of course tempted to simplify things and say it’s the Green Man of alternative indie fandangos, Latitude at first glance sharing its wide-eyed ethos and distinct musical passion, and that of course is no bad thing.

The line-up at Latitude this year comprises of a healthy proportion of the cream in underground pop, bands like quaint San Francisco melodicists Two Gallants, orchestral Danish art-poppers The Kissaway Trail, Mogwai-ish noise-sculptors Explosions in the Sky, Nu-pop pixie Patrick Wolf, and the collectively sublime Pete and the Pirates, Herman Dune and Au Revoir Simone joining more established and still-exciting acts like CSS, Jarvis Cocker, Arcade Fire, the magic desert-blues combo Tinawaren and the twenty-nine headed pop riot I’m from Barcelona to fill the countryside with aural wonder. There’s Damien Rice too, but in the light of all this, it shouldn't be too bad.

The music will all be spaced out over four specialist music stages (the Sunrise Arena and Lake Stage sounding more than promising), as around it culture is left to teem in its myriad forms. Latitude has its finger in most pies, and Russell Brand this year leads a cast of worthy funny-guys who’ll play the Latitude Comedy Arena, wreaking lowdown surrealist havoc no doubt with worthy contemporaries like Alan Carr, Russell Howard and Phil Jupitus. Even for a person who could never pretend to be a new-comic connoisseur, the line-up sounds quite good.

What is a cultural event without a cinema representation? Not much, and the organiser’s of Latitude’s Music and Film Arena promise a jazz club feel with small tables and lamps with velvet drapes in which to enjoy some world cinema and insightful documentaries, while possibly limbering up for a special question and answer sessions with a cinema notable afterwards. The Stand-Up Poetry Arena meanwhile invites established poets, comedians, rappers, lyricists and story-tellers to perform alongside members of the public willing to give it a shot, and the Literature Arena throws up similar treats as it seeks to emulate last year’s “succulent” Robin Ince readings from the Mills and Boon novels. Don Letts and Johnny Green will be well worth catching here as always with their double-act of alt-punk anecdotes and bad shoes.

Latitude’s Theatre Arena has this year commissioned short plays from the likes of the Royal Court Theatre (who’ll do Nabakov) all the way down to DiY acts like Colin and Fergus and Phillipa Peacock, while the Outdoor Theatre has A Midsummer’s Night Dream to set pulses racing into what’ll hopefully be the deep summer night. There’s even a Cabaret Arena where you can learn Burlesque Striptease (a handy thing to have on your CV no doubt), and embark on all manner of surrealist bordello fun.

A good children’s are can be seen as a sign of a real, affectionate festival, and, maybe with the Cabaret Arena in mind, you might want to loan your kids out for a few moments, and Latitude’s promise to provide a feast for creatively inclined youngsters sounds grand. Books, art, music, theatre, circus skills, handcraft and even “torchlit walks” through the enchanted woods are the visionary promise, and you can even join in yourself for a bit of a laugh (with of course a serious edge) with a bit of show-them-how-it’s-done adult painting.

Lots of festivals are taking this admirable multi-cultural route, and if they all sound as interesting as the Latitude take, we might be in for a great, mind-bending year. In this competitive modern world of new festivals of course, a great setting can give that extra edge of atmosphere, and with its woods, lake, panoramic scenery and of course painted sheep (see last year and the picture) the grounds of Henham Park Estate, Southwold, will also be pretty hard to beat. In its sophomore year, with big sponsors on board, Latitude seemingly retains that vital underground air. Floating easily on the alternative side of the summer fares, it’s a burgeoning monster with alternative soul.

MIWSIG SUMMER FEST TOP FIVES: EARLY-FORECAST LATITUDE HIGHLIGHTS

5. CSS taking their raucous and cut-glass cool live show to superstar straddling heights (hopefully they remain superstars of our kind… pleeeeeeaaase!)

4. Herman Dune playing 1, 2, 3, Apple Tree as the sun goes down on the Suffolk horizon.

3. Reading’s Pete and the Pirates assaulting tastes with sublimely off-kilter tunes.

2. Don Letts and Johnny Green with their punk narrative double act.

1. Au Revoir Simone in the summer haze with a warm cider or two.

MIWSIG FESTIVAL MONKEY’S POTENTIAL RATING: 9

© 2007 Neil Jones

© Miwsig