Sunday overview

It’s 11:30 am and all that’s missing is Mike Reid as a couple of hundred people loiter outside the comedy tent ready to Runaraaaaaaaaaaaoud. Of course, they are all pretending to be doing something else whilst they wait for the tent to open. (In actual fact, the tent is ‘open’ – in a very British way were are being prevented from going in by a flimsy piece of tape...and it’s working!)

At 11:50am the tape is removed and an unseemly scrum develops as these patch-of-ground-prospectors attempt to grab prime comedy real estate that they can call their own. People forget that once they find their patch standing up, they must then sit down, so space is very tight because as soon as you park your behind you expand. What it all means is that comedy tent residents are entering the world of pins and needles. The acts had better be worth it.

It’s unlikely many people have come specifically to see Jarred Christmas, but spurred on by the capacity crowd in a too-small-for-the-job tent, he gives a decent set which is a homage to overweight hairy men everywhere. So, that’s me then. Oh, and the next act, who we all got here early for – Phill Jupitus and Friends. This promising billing sadly turns out to be an hour of improvisation. I’m sure it’s very clever, but getting people to shout out situations before completely ignoring them is not for me.

So, back to the Lake Stage, after carefully picking my way through dead legs, for Cate Le Bon. Her lovely meandering folky tunes are perfect Sunday afternoon fayre, as the sun beats down and people lie or sit, all tapping their feet. It matters not a jot that half the set is in Welsh and the calm is only broken by a jam at the end, which jolts us from our slumber.



Bizarrely dressed in baseball cap, glasses, t-shirt, shorts and knee length pink and black striped socks, Gideon Conn looks anything but a pop artist. In fact, if he was sat next to the only empty seat on a bus, you’d probably choose to stand. It just goes to show how appearances can be deceptive.

Musically he has a laid back groove with funky bass, while Conn helium rap/sings over the top. ‘State of the Nation’ also features a trombone riff while Conn despairs about the country, bemoaning ‘cold calls from corporations’ and Big Brother.



Conn has an unfeasibly jolly on stage persona because, I suspect, he is an unfeasibly jolly person. During a serious number on the evils of money in today’s world, he takes time out to smile and wave at Glastonbury unsigned winner Liz Green, which kind of ruins the illusion. He then leads us through an ‘accapella’ song called ‘Electricity’, complete with actions for ‘pylons and wires’. It is probably no co-incidence that his last tune is called ‘Eccentric’ and whilst eccentric he may be, he is a born entertainer.

As Conn ended, the only daytime rain starts to fall heavily, and the crowd for Cherry Ghost is a large one as they are playing in a tent. But when it stops as they begin, no-one leaves, and Simon Aldred rightly takes this as a complement – we are here on purpose and to see his band.

Aldred has done is time on the Manchester scene, with a number of commercially unsuccessful projects in his past, so it’s no surprise to see him turning up at every possible festival this summer as he grabs the chance the wonderful ‘Mathematics’ has afforded him. It is, after all, the best love song of the last 12 months...at least.

There are upbeat songs that have an REM feel and rattle along in a perfectly enjoyable way, but it is on the slower songs where the band shines. Aldred’s gravely voice of 40 cigarettes and a bottle of JD give the ballads an alternative edge the ‘X-Factor’ clones will never understand. ‘Roses’, ‘Mathematics’ and closing ‘People Help the People’ are wonderfully wistful, the guitars shimmering and vibrating the last rain drops off the canvas. The band also knowingly allows a sing-and-wave-your-arms moment in the latter.

For those of us missing the telly a little, the literary tent is hosting a sort of version of Marcus Brigstocke’s The Late Edition although there are no scripts; it’s simply a review of the papers from which they devise some quips between themselves - him, Andre Vincent, Carrie Quinlan and a now ubiquitous Phill Jupitus. This time the leg lobotomy is worth it as there are frequent laugh out loud moments as they take the mickey out of themselves and those in the public eye. They encourage contributions from the audience, but ask that people raise their hand rather than heckle. I come up with what I think is a brilliantly funny quip, but I don’t have the balls to say anything for fear of ridicule. Probably a wise decision.

Charlotte Hatherley vs Cold War Kids is a tough call, but in the end I plump for the former, simply because I’d seen Cold War Kids earlier this year. But in the end I bugger off to see much of the superb CWC set because Hatherley is so utterly dreary (For a review of Cold War Kids at Latitude see here.

The Uncut tent is sparsely populated anyway due to the clash, but soon many of the few have admitted defeat and gone elsewhere as Hatherley’s formulaic indie-pop fails to ignite.

The Rapture though are polar opposites to Hatherley, they immediately got the crowd moving with their unqualified danceabilty. With the bass, keys and drums providing a funky backing, the jagged edge of the guitar and strained voices assault your ears, out of place with the beat, but sounding so appealing.

‘House of Jealous Lovers’ is spectacular, the riff biting, bass pounding and cymbals crashing, with of course a liberal use of the cow bell. You can just about forgive The Rapture’s over-use of the cow bell as they were the latest pioneers of the instrument, and where they led others followed, but in tonight’s 12 tracks there is a 75% cowbell quota to songs. That’s verging on overkill!

Still, the tracks from latest album ‘Pieces of the People We Love’ are every bit as exciting as those from ‘Echoes’, and if these boys are capable of making a huge field like this jump up and down on a Sunday dinnertime, imagine what they are like in a sweaty room! Awesome, I’d wager.

We’ve just time to nip back to the Uncut tent and catch a bit of Gruff Rhys, who wins the prize for ‘ace set of the weekend’. Our man sits with his guitar, newsreader style, in a giant TV with his glamorous co-presenter, in front of a Candylion test card. He is dressed as a pilot, she as a flight attendant and as some cheesy 70’s music plays as we are welcomed aboard this Candy Airlines flight.



Rhys stays seated throughout, from ‘Candylion’ to ‘Skylon’ but what would you expect from a man as mellow as this? The songs reflect that character, including one song in Welsh that he asks us to be patient with, as “it builds”. The reason becomes clear as Rhys puts all sorts of vocal lines, guitar riffs and electronic trickery into loops before sitting back and letting the song perform itself. At one point he feigns sleep on the desk as the band plays on. At another he waves a lasso in the air. This is what I like about Rhys and his band; they are always experimenting, even if it didn’t work.

It’s a shame I have to leave a little early – just as he starts the 13 minute long tale that is ‘Skylon’ but as a man of the 90’s, there is no way I am missing a personal hero, Jarvis Cocker. I was so fond of Pulp back in the day that during one drunken evening I announced to my friend that Cocker was the only man I would sleep with. Whilst I would now like to publicly retract that statement, it is still a treat to see him on stage again.



From the opening bar of ‘Fat Children’ Cocker is high kicking, posing and jumping on and off monitors seemingly having a ball. His inter-song banter puts other acts to shame as he waxes lyrical on subjects as varied as fresh water fish, cloud formations on Venus and how performing in daylight really shows up the years.

What’s more, and without the need to resort to the Pulp back catalogue, the songs are really strong. Sure, they are more adult oriented now, like the tale of living alone that is ‘One Man Show’, but what do you expect, he IS an adult now.

Everyone expects the song that revived his pop creating juices – ‘Running The World’ – to be his last for the night, and it would certainly be a fitting end, but Jarvis pulls pop royalty rank and quickly slips another one in – a bizarre cover of ‘Eye of the Tiger’. The crowd love it, of course, but as a wise man next to me said, “bloody hell, I’d have been less surprised if he’d done ‘Common People’” It was that much of a shock.

And finally, a bit late due to Cocker’s indulgence, come the Arcade Fire. I’ll put my cards on the table straight away, I think this is the best live band in the world right now…second to no-one. The first time I saw them I went on purely on a recommendation from a friend without having heard a note of their music and they completely blew me away. I stood at the back for their Glastonbury performance, in liquid mud and with the sound spoiled by echoing off the hill and yet they still did it to me again. I had been looking forward to this moment all weekend and I was not disappointed, they were spellbinding from the first note of ‘Keep The Car Running’.



There is such an array of instruments on show that you can listen to the songs over and over again, picking out a bit your ears hadn’t spotted before – ‘No Cars Go’ features an accordion, 3 violins, 2 horns, 3 guitars, drums and keyboard in there somewhere.

All the quicker songs have arms flailing and legs moving whilst slower songs like ‘Ocean of Noise’ are mesmerising and the audience are quiet. Meanwhile, Win Butler’s apparently surly persona has transformed into an affable front man happy to chat between songs about Harry Potter and hotel bars, as though he recognises that a band this size must interact, especially one that can take a long time changing instruments.

For the encore we hear the now familiar church organ sound of ‘Intervention’ which again has fists thrown in the air with abandon before they end on ‘Wake Up’. During this fireworks are set of to ‘ooh’s from the crowd and smiles from the band, although they are behind us, so we’re not sure which way to look.

Arcade Fire played in Spain less than 24 hours before hitting the Latitude stage, but you can’t tell with the energy they put in, and they seem to have enjoyed themselves too. I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to close a festival.

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