Latitude Festival 2012 Friday Review

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.

Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three

Playing their second show in a week at Shepard's Bush's very own Bush Hall, the young Country Blues singer Pokey LaFarge brought along the South City Three for a show which was hotter than a 2 dollar pistol.

Coming off the back of a sterdy warm up performance of the Ouse Valley Three, delivering a host of classics from Johnny Cash's (I Was There When It Happened & Big River) and Jimmy Hendrix's (Easy Rider) impressive catalogue of hits and set a blue grass tone, old southern American feel for the whole evening. Plenty of cowboy enthusiased turned up as a rare performance from the Illonois star loomed ever closer.

Popularity for Pokey LeFarge & The South City Three rose over on these shores after an appearance on the legendary Late Night With Jools Holland program. The American blues man seems to be bringing a rivival to the genre, espeically on these shores. There has never been a real following for artists such as Willie Dixon and Bill Monroe in the UK, but with the young Pokey LeFarge coming through to showcase his passion, we will soon learn a lot about the American way of life.

Not only does Pokey LeFarge sing and play like an old time Southerner, but he talks like it to. Entertaining the crowd as he goes with funny anecdotes about his music and how its not a real performance until he sweats. Believe me, he was sweating by the gallon so it must have been a good show in his eyes when performing the hits 'Drinkin' Whisky Tonight' and 'La La Blues' to the packed Bush Hall audience.

What impressed me most was band member Ryan Koeing who not only had a talent for the harmonica but also brought along an old fashioned washboard and used that as a rhythmic instrument. The once upon a time invention was used in the past to wash clothes before washing machines were around and it seems with a few bells and plates attached, The South City Three have found a new lease of life for the home apparatus.

Though I was in a different environment to what I am used to, you could see the love clearly through everyone around. In my eyes, I couldn't really tell each song apart unless Pokey himself was telling us what song was next. The same instruments were used throughout the hour and a half the band were on stage and there was no real variety in their play.

Nonetheless, Pokey LeFarge & The South City Three are a breath of fresh air for a number of reasons and I minor detail can be ignored... For now anyway.

Scroobius Pip at Koko, 27th February 2012

I don’t know if your nights out usually involve blood spilling, noose wearing, hair shaving and fast rhymes all rolled into one, but when you attend a Scroobius Pip gig nowadays, that will be the norm.

Scroobius Pip’s debut solo album ‘Distraction Pieces’ follows the same depressing but real topics we know and love from the Essex lad and that’s why the fellow bearded community, some sporting facial hair nearly as impressive as the main man himself, joined Mr Pip at Koko’s on a Monday night.

After coming on stage with his back pack still on and shaving lumps of hair from the side of his head, the poet made sure everyone knew he was enjoying himself as he expressed himself by saying, ‘you know I’m glad to be here after being in France for a whole week, I fuckin’ hate Paris!’

Though we were all hoping that Scroobius would sneak in a couple of his previous acts hits in his set, perhaps a ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ or something, however what the bearded poet produced was certainly much more weirder and intense so wouldn’t have fit into his hour show. His supported act B. Dolan, who you would think is the white Cee Lo Green but with a long blonde beard when first gazing upon him, came out for their humorous track ‘Solider Boy Kill Em’ which pokes fun at the 15 minutes of fame star. He also joined him on stage for the encore along with

Scroobius Pip can certainly hold his own. The spoken word genius looks like he was born to say 300-400 words per song of real life stories every night. You wouldn’t have ever thought he was born with a stutter. With a new Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip album on the way at the end of the year, Scroobius is definitely staking a claim at being one of the best rappers the UK has ever produced.