Latitude Music and Arts Festival, Suffolk. Latitude 2017

Latitude Festival, Suffolk:

After the muddy horrors of Festival No 6 last year, I spent most of last week anxiously checking the weather forecast for Suffolk. To my relief, it showed the weather as cloudy and not especially warm, but at least it was going to be dry! So we packed the tent and the camping gear into the car and set off to Latitude which had promised us great music, theatre, relaxation, science, dance, discussion, and most of all – a good time.

Entering from the camping site the first impression is how much space the festival offers. The shady woods set the scene for the delights that awaited us. As we wandered through the woods we could hear music from the main stage, yet it felt that we were deep in the countryside. The first lovely surprise was finding a book beneath a tree, a gift from the author. We saw quite a few people carrying these, so they must have been scattered across the festival.

The huge choice of activities can be seen in this signage:

Tired after the drive, we perused the food vendors which included Waitrose. We opted for a delicious Nepalese curry. It’s really nice to go to a festival and not be afraid of the food offerings!

In the afternoon we watched the Mystery Jets on the main stage accompanied by a BSL signer who seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. We popped into see Beth Orton on the BBC stage, and the raw Shame on the Lake Stage. These lads are still only 19, and although a bit rough around the edges, they had an amazing front man and a huge amount of energy; they were like Joy Divison mixed with the Fall (if that’s possible!), I think that they could go far. We then fancied a drink and popped into the Carlsberg bar, where there was another opportunity to see and hear new talent – a quartet was called Victoria. In some respects, the drink offering at Latitude is the only disappointment; it’s all big brand names, we didn’t find any local brewers represented amongst the offering.

Fancying some culture, we wandered to the lake stage to watch the Ballet Boyz perform a new ballet called Rabbit. This was a mix of ballet with some very acrobatic parts.

We popped into the Speakeasy tent to hear Lol Tolhurst in conversation about his time growing up in Crawley, going to school with Robert Smith and joining the Cure. Ready for more music we watched Ride perform confidently, and then joined the crowd awaiting 1975. Oh my goodness, in my day we had Donny Osmond, David Cassidy and the Bay City Rollers as the love objects for young girls, but 1975 leapt onto stage exuding sexual energy. No wonder there were a lot of very excited young girls there! Feeling rather old, we left and caught Placebo giving an equally charged performance. It’s the third time I’ve seen them live and they are always amazing (and I do love a man in makeup!)

Re-energised we headed into the woods to dance to Simian Mobile Disco.

Throughout the day it was notable how friendly everyone was, we chatted to loads of fellow festival goers and staff who enthused about bits that they had seen and enjoyed.

We were sorry to have to leave on Saturday, but Lucy and her friend then joined in the fun! Watch out for Latitude Part II!