Latitude's diverse act policy & the heat made for a great weekend

After a very late night out on the pop in the woods last night it was weary eyes I made my way to see Tom Jones' Sunday set, which was added due to the huge crowds that couldn't see him in the woods on Thursday night. Unfortunately Jones fell into that time honoured festival mistake of playing just his new stuff, which is alright, but the crowds chants for Sex Bomb or Delilah where plainly ignored. The addition of producer Ethan on guitar made the set a little interesting but not enough to warrant further listening so I wandered off to the Word Arena, where Rox was strutting her not very much dressed body very actively around the stage. Their reggae influenced dance beats clearly getting the small crowd on their feet & even a reggae styled cover of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams was simply amazing!!!

Strolling around the arena I heard some interesting sounds coming from the Lake Stage, seems Norfolk band Cevanne are on stage which is adorned with horned instruments, harpsichords & a number of instruments I haven't even seen before. The lead singer looks as though she just came from dance university with songs done with visual element of dance & some of the lyrics, which are clearly taken from health & safety signs & even in flight air safety messages makes for some very interesting combinations it has to be said, their set is all to brief & I would have liked to have seen more from Cevanne & will be checking them out again if they're at another festival.

Jamie Lidell's rare appearance at Latitude was also a similar joy. With his influences from all genres there is plenty here for everyone, Liddell struts around the stage in complete confidence, but with a quirky obsessive compulsion to pick up random items like a megaphone or leaping to the keyboards or picking up drum sticks & makes for a very dizzy spectacle in the vein of Jarvis Cocker. Thinking Latitude couldn't get any better the Obelisk Arena has the sky reaching, everyone's favourite band Mumford & Sons. Having flown straight in from Spain to be here, despite being a little tired, their folksy fast styled guitar & banjo playing skills are great, with people laid in the blistering heat even standing up for a bit of a bum shake.

We are then brought down to earth with a massive bump as Dirty Projectors fail to impress, band members singing out of time and tune & plainly boring to watch, the boredom then goes up another notch as Midlake take to the stage oh dear 10 minute prog rock songs echoing all that was wrong with seventies prog rock fail to inspire & you know as soon as a flute is brought out things are going to get worse.

Fed up with the music I go and chill out to some comedy & catch the legendary Emo Philips in the comedy tent, which brings some much needed happiness & spirits raised I make my way for today's main headliners Vampire Weekend who keep us waiting for fifteen minutes as their instruments have flown here separately from Portugal, still the crowd waited eagerly some girls on the front barrier have waited there for over nine hours to catch their heroes. Vampire Weekend put in a blinding headline set which pleased the latidude crowd, Oxford Comma getting the biggest cheer & cousins getting a great sing-along too.

Latitude's diverse act policy & the fantastic hot temperatures made for a great weekend, even with increased capacity this year being blamed for some of the huge queues at the smaller stages, Latitude is definitely one of the better festivals on the circuit. The arena not showing any sign of discarded paper cups, due to everyone having to buy a reusable plastic cup for drinks is just a simply brilliant idea, which meant there was no sign of the depressing site watching skin festival goers collecting cups for 10p. The site also had plenty of recycling bins scattered around, keeping discarded rubbish to minimum. Other festivals would do well to visit latitude & see how it should be done.

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