When: 25 – 28 July 2024
Where: Henham Park, Suffolk, England.
If a festival knows its lane then it’s Latitude. Every July a predominantly white, middle-class, centre-left-leaning, crowd gathers to hear a mix of the new and the old in comedy and music, and a host of talks on topics like the British Empire in India and how to eat better bread, and from people like Irvine Welsh and Mark Kermode.
The bin-dipping kids are still around, collecting paper (not plastic this year!) cups for their 5p refund, and the deck chairs still create havoc in the Obelisk Arena – Latitude’s main stage. The site itself has stayed reassuringly familiar, with an excellent selection of (expensive) food, well-staffed bars, and a supremely clean site.
On the comedy side of things, it’s a shame that it wraps up so early at around 6pm as some late night comedy would go down really well. The Comedy Stage size is an issue for the bigger acts as well, it could not contain Stewart Lee‘s audience at 1pm on Sunday. Two highlights of the weekend were part man part pun Mark Simmonds who had a gag for literally every hobby, and Sunday headliner Joanne McNally whose observational comedy about turning 40 and dating meant many apologies to the children present.
Friday
Tent pitched, well popped up, just in time to catch Frank Turner dragging the early afternoon crowd along with him and his extremely engaging form of folk-punk music. He’s put the hard yards of touring in and gives it his all. Another artist that captured the audience through sheer force of personality was Caity Baser, with her biographical, lyrically blunt songs running the gamut of relationships, her constant references to “14-year-old Caity” being amazed at all this were endearing and she captured the mood by just being herself; which is, to be fair, her USP.
Squashed in between was Waxahatchee, with Katie Crutchfield on excellent form, if much quieter between songs. The band was tight, her songs enchanting, and all sounded just the right kind of enveloping for a warm Friday afternoon. At this point, a note on Kasabian. Their management team deserve a knighthood, this is a band without a decent album for over 10 years and a frontman who doesn’t want to be a frontman – and you can tell, despite Serge’s best effort – yet they headline festivals year after year. How?
Future Islands on the other hand, well, their frontman is a whirling dervish of a human being, all guttural growls, chest-beating, spinning, running, lunging, and jumping. Samuel T Herring doesn’t really sing, he emotes, it’s performance art not music, yet it’s beguiling and you cannot take your eyes off the stage.
Saturday
Music took a backseat on Saturday with the comeback king Rick Astley – who let’s never forget disappeared for about 30 years – patrolling the stage while joking, acting, and playing a Sam Fender cover. Oh, and of course, playing the drums on ‘Highway To Hell’. Saturday night headliners London Grammar finally made it to the top slot after years of rumours, and you have to give it to Latitude, they do try to promote new bands into those headline slots to feed the larger festivals. The trio have grown as a live act over the last few years, still finding their presence on stage but getting more confident with each album. A cool drone camera interacted with them throughout, those having someone from the audience sing their closer ‘Strong’ was a strange misstep – no offence to Darcy who was great.
Sunday
With a beautiful cloudless sky above and the sun blazing, The Lottery Winners were the perfect band to adorn the Obelisk Stage, with cheeky chappy frontman Thom Rylance playing puppetmaster with the crowd they totally slayed their hour slot. Opening song ‘Worry’ is some song, and the self-proclaimed “mediocre indie band” drew a sizeable crowd by the end of their set. Baby Queen and Marika Hackman clashed both in time and style, And Ash absolutely owned the early evening slot on the Second Stage, playing all the hits to one of the largest crowds the tent saw over the weekend. Finally, trendy Mercury Prize nominated English Teacher clashed with the supremely untrendy ‘80s survivors Duran Duran, and there was only one winner: the Wild Boys. Rolling out all their hits from the ‘80s and ‘90s the quartet had punters of all ages going wild and singing every word. Simon Le Bon is a truly unique frontman, at once totally awkward and acting much like an end-of-the-pier entertainer, while simultaneously singing his lungs out perfectly and holding attention like few can.
So all in all, the Latitude we deserve. It does exactly what it says on the tin: music, comedy, and all of the arts.
Latitude; never change.
