In its seventh year, Latitude Festival has become into one of the big fishes in the UK festival scene and is certainly a go to event for all music lovers alike. With an array of different arenas to go see the best in poetry, spoken word, comedy, film, literacy and cabaret, Suffork’ Henham’s Park is certainly more than just a music festival. I managed to get my hands on tickets for the first night of the extravagant spectacle as I avoided the heavy rain which was forecasted across Saturday and Sunday. Yes I know, I’m a wimp.
It was my first time at Latitude festival and being a normal festival goer, you could sense a number of differences which makes this event more special and unique. For one thing, it seems very family friendly with the children’s and inbetweeners teen tents dedicated to the younger audience. You often walked around the field with parents pushing a baby’s pram in front of you. Also, there are a staggering amount of stages for not just music acts to dazzle the audience. Most of these attractions don’t get the platform they deserve but festival organisers at Latitude make sure the best in poetry, literary, spoken word and cabaret make an appearance. They also have a couple of stages in the woods for a rustic look and hippie feel.
When it came to arriving at Latitude Festival however, it was a case of so much to see but no time to do it. You need to be very selective in what you was going to do at this festival as you were either going to miss someone you really wanted to see or you will get lost in time. It’s good to mix a bit of music with another of entertainment and I chose to see a couple of high quality comedians in Josh Widdicombe and Mark Watson. Mark Watson being a veteran at Latitude, dived into the crowd (not literally) and noted at being heckled in a very middle classed fashion when a 13 year old girl shouted, ‘you said that joke on the radio’. ‘Only at Latitude’ Mark responded as the talented comedian quickly thought up some improv to entertain the fans.
Next was checking out the talented music artists at the festival with a number of trips between the main stage or the Obelisk Stage and the Word Stage. One important point to note out is how the Obelisk Stage is guarded off from the rest of the festival with trees in the way of performances. This makes the rest of the festival scene a bit quiet and chilled out but it does lose its festival feel slightly. Anyway, there were a number of talented musicians on show spreading from across the globe with African artists Fatoumata Diawara and Amadou & Mariam in attendance with Urban American stars Janelle Monaé and Lana Del Rey and Irish folk singer Glen Hansard.
For me though, the last two acts of the day Metronomy and Bon Iver were spectacular. You had the eletro pop outfit Metronomy performing their upbeat dance tracks from their Mercury Prize nominated album The English Rivera with huge results. When they started, the field was pretty bare but as there hour long set went on, the fans kept increasing in numbers. Then finally, the multi Grammy award winning Bon Iver gave a mesmerizing performance which only supports the claims that they are one of the best bands in the world right now. Though they were 20 minutes late, they more than made up for that with their 9 piece band including two drummers. The songs that were truly memorable were of course, Skinny Love with Justin Vernor by himself and his guitar, Holocene and Perth as they both included powerfully gripping performances from all members of the band.
With news breaking out now that Latitude plans to increase its capacity next year to above 35,000 people, it’s no surprise with the kind of impact the festival has on all forms of entertainment. Without sounding repetitive, this unique festival has something for everyone. It’s no doubt that in possible another 5-10 years, they could gather the same reputation as the prestigious Glastonbury Festival.
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