Latitude 2011

Today might not be sunny and warm, but surely you can remember the cleverly timed string of sunny days that blessed this country over Easter and the Royal holiday, if you can’t that’s probably because you are still sun stroked or were abroad on an anti kingdom trip. Either way, we're here to tell you that now it’s officially possible to envisage hanging out in a park and sleeping in a tent of your own free will and not just because you’re homeless. For a few months coming up we can confirm that the outdoors won’t kill you… it’s time to start thinking about festivals, and we’re thinking Latitude.

The Nutshell team went to Latitude last year for the first time and it was wonderful so this year not only we want to go again, we want you to be there too. Here’s a list of 5 indisputable reasons:

1. Sheep the colour of rainbow and the most bucolic of settings. I’m not sure why, but blue, green and pink sheep do exist outside the realm of hallucinogenics and they’re at Latitude, sprawled about on the field by a sleepy river, looking happy and chewing grass. Thick forest surrounds the main stages, with some smaller stages deep inside among the trees… We have to say, the location is perfect, and it kind of makes the festival.

2. The literary presence. There are several tents dedicated to poetry and literature. These are large, cool areas sheltered from the scorching sun and equipped with comfy cushions. One can very well wake up early in the morning, have a quick shower and then come here and settle on a cushion to see who’s reading what, not exactly dozing back to sleep but waking up gently to the sound of a poem or a story. If this doesn’t sound blissful I don’t know what does.

Later in the day, things warm up and the tents get packed, and the good thing is: they get packed with lovely people. The line up is super and the atmosphere great. Damn we do love those shady tents!

3. The comedyyyy. How blissful rocking up to the comedy tent at random times and finding ourselves sitting there in stitches for hours. The comedy tent is huge and really crowded, you’ll have to walk over people to get to an empty patch and that’s probably when you’ll be picked at by the comedian on stage. A tip: outside the tent we found some sofas lying about, if you see a free one, drag it all the way to the tent and use it. They’re the most comfortable way of watching comedy, they'll swallow you whole and you'll literally forget yourself.

4. The music. This year we feel like we're in a time warp, it's just a jump to the left and a step to the right and Suede appear, together with Echo and the Bunnymen. Those of you brave enough to admit it can join us right now and get really excited about these comebacks, what a treat! Also, remember when OMD meant Original Manoeuvres in the Dark and OMG absolutely nothing? We do, and we can't wait to be there and see how they hold the stage. The great thing about this year's line up is that Latitude combines good oldies with really fresh new bands, without forgetting the sweet inbetweeners like Paolo Nutini, The Cribs, Paloma Faith, KT Tunstall, The National, Eels, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan and British Sea Power.

5. The rest! Theatre, Cabaret, Film, Ballet, Contemporary Art... who knows what will impress you and capture your imagination, what will Sadler's Wells and the English National Ballet will come up with or what will happen at Pandora's Playground. One of the best things about festivals, and what it should be all about, is discovery and experimentation. Wandering the grounds finding new things to like.

We can't wait!

Paolo Nutini - Headlining on Saturday at the Obelisk Arena

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The last day of Latitude, Heather Phillipson, Blake Morrison & Sebastian Faulks.

On the last day of Latitude everybody was exhausted, the sun still hitting down hard on various levels of sunburnt and freckled skin, the memory of rainy British summers gone. In the morning, the poetry and literary tents offered shade and quiet to people wishing to use the cushions scattered around the floor for a nap, the memory of the comfort of mattresses and pillows still quite vivid in everyone's minds and crooked spines. Regardless of their efforts, the spoken word kids couldn't wake up the audience, let alone get them to join in, although, to be fair, the ginger guy with guitar (it you're reading, come forth with your name, i didn't catch it and you're not on the program - but i am posting a video of you below) did get a few feet waving unconsciously to his pieces, and got Joshua Idehen and Alex Gwyther (He's a poet - and you know it', pictured above) on their knees in adoration as a result.



Then it was the turn of Heather Phillipson, whose poems lie peacefully between philosophy and the mundane. It seemed that her reverie on stripping between Marlborough road and Archway, and 'say nothing of what I know except what my body announces' were shared by many a listener who wished to do just that. The poem on mashed potatoes, however, didn't quite make it past the music coming from the stages, and many drifted away while I got quite hungry.

In the literature arena, in the meantime, Sebastian Faulks was being introduced. We pop round to have a look and find Faulks exclaiming 'God, I'm prolific!' after mentioning a couple of new books coming out soon. He follows with a few excerpts from Pistache, one of said releases, and then proceeds to answer a couple of questions from the audience: Did he always want to be an author? Yes. Does he work on one project at the time? Yes. Does he ever struggle to write? No, he doesn't believe in writers' block - déjà vu? It seems that he and Bret Easton Ellis agree on this one - 'Respect the bad day,' he says, 'it's God's way of telling you you've got nothing to say.' Faulks has his followers, of course, but they're not many and not very dedicated, however much people parade Latitude as a tame family and old people do, everything points to the opposite, it's a festival for people (young, older and, yeah, with children too) interested in poetry and literature as well as music, but they want it edgy and provocative. Ellis might have been too hung-over to speak or answer any questions, but he packed the tent with stalkers and groupies.

But let's go back to the Poetry Tent, here it was the turn of old Nutshell friend Blake Morrison, introduced as 'the best and most influential poet of the past 30 years', who reads a few favourites as well as some new material, and works the crowd well, picking from a very well stocked bag of tricks a poem made entirely of monosyllables, a poem composed by only 7 rhyming words, and an intense, violent poem about serial killer Peter Sutcliffe. Morrison explains all poems prior to reading and reads them out clearly, passionately, and changing voices and accents, he leaves without Q&A but the crowd loves him anyway.

The Masked Ball in the Faraway Forest - Latitude

This festival, they say, is much more relaxed and civilised than Glastonbury & Co. and we agree, however, on the night of the 17th, Saturday, I discovered the other side of Latitude. After the main stages close down everybody is too high on sun and music to go to sleep, perhaps those who equipped themselves with blow up mattresses or even rented one of those amazing bungalows the prospect of an early night might have seemed appealing, but for the majority of us sleeping on the cold, hard ground, with insects and whiffs of faraway portaloos coming in waves through the plastic of our tents, the night was to be spent celebrating. Night time entertainment was divided in two main areas, 'In the Woods' and 'Faraway Forest'. While on the first night we only ventured 'In the Woods', where two stages pumped electro-tech-house-progressive-underground beats and ravers jumped from trees on other ravers busy in deep philosophical conversations, on Saturday we ventured into the 'Faraway Forest', which being rather far away we had previously missed, and into the masked ball.

The mood, in the 'Faraway Forest' is suddenly altered, some trees are covered in luminescent, Avatar-like, strings and ribbons; others are wrapped in pieces of paper, each carrying a different message; some are there to protect the faeries' cruising grounds, where a pair of siamese twin zebras abduct you and take you to cruising spirits who want nothing more than giving you a good time. At every corner, surreal happenings take place on makeshift stages and theatres: a wasted teenager turns out to be a hoola prodigy, shooting her shoes into the distance and whizzing her 7 hoops past a bottle of vodka and discarded items of clothing; a two headed mannequin woman dances the struggle of her two identities away while a gang of horror paramedics tend to random passers-by with bandages and electric charges. Two Roving Unicorns roam the forest calmly as puppeteers animate the tragi/romantic story of Panfilo and Perpetua (courtesy of the woodenfingers theatre), and people cheer to the queer DUCKIE vaudeville and variety acts, including brilliant stripping magician Ursula Martinez, in the warmth of the cabaret tent. Quite like a dream, and better than any cinematic reconstruction of follies, the Faraway Forest masked ball set the night alight. After the shows, people kept dancing - and really engaging with each other! - until closure at 3AM, and even then, not ready for sleep, retired to the campsites to dance some more around bonfires.

Saturday Night at Latitude - Belle and Sebastian

After Crystal Castle, came Belle and Sebastian. I am not sure if you're familiar with either, but they go together like paper cuts and lemon juice. B&S are back on stage after four years, and initially, as I watch the crowd disappear over the hill to go and see the XX, I am worried that nobody will remember them or care enough to stay. But the XX fans' disappearance revealed the solid block of hardcore B&S supporters glued to the barriers under the stage, and soon more tigermilkers and sinisters descended from the trees and came out of the forest where they hid from Crystal Castle to fill the field with the nicest crowd you'll ever see. Strangers high-five-ing from the top of their mate's shoulders, people hopping and skipping, singing along to every word (from the early albums, at least) and children blowing bubbles with bubble machine-guns (here's to modern hippies).
Belle and Sebastian might not be the most visually stimulating band, they generally just play standing quite still, as Stuart Murdoch hops about the stage alone, but they compensate well, getting 20 kids from the crowd on stage to dance, playing an improvised Stones cover, and generally relying on the kind of audience who were following them when nobody knew they existed, and just can't believe they're seeing them live, playing 'Fox in the snow', again.

Saturday night Latitude - Crystal Castle

The Crystal Castle's set began as it meant to go on - CASTRATE THEM!! - she shouted, garnering instant support from the vocal crowd, in reference to the rapist(s) who have brought an unwanted edge to the weekend.

The same rage accompanied the rest of the set. Alice Glass is well known for her stage antics, with her Smiths '84 tour t-shirt and emo'd up to the nines, she proceeded to beat teenagers with her microphone using a viciousness matched only by the joy of those being assaulted, having recently had the opportunity to grapple her flesh as she surfed above them.

Music needs its heroines and villains, both together is a bonus, it keeps teenage pants warm. However, seeing as we're at 'Latte-tude' I'll have to watch Belle and Sebastian to calm my nerves.

Sad news from Latitude, two girls raped.

I am supposed to tell you all about last night but today's grim discovery kind of put me off it. A girl was raped on Thursday and another one on Friday here at Latitude festival, which puts all the fun we might have had so far into perspective, especially since it's been kept rather quiet, the only indication being the barely decipherable rants of a teenage maniac (Crystal Castle's front woman) as she proceeded to punch her fans, and the suspicious closure of the press tent. Even then, nothing's being said, only upon googling 'latitude rape' we found out what might be the cause of the closure and cameras filming policemen. Of course, although more highbrow and adult than other festivals, Latitude is packed with very drunk, very friendly young men and women running around all night having fun, and even more so, maybe, than at other festivals, there are lots of children too. The parties go on until 3am and then people either crash or keep partying around campfires by their tents. Although it's great to see the amount of freedom everyone enjoys in these woods, which at night turn into hallucinating real life midsummer night dreams where anything can and does happen and everyone is happy, leaflets spreading the news and asking for witnesses, announcements raising awareness and not just that Tom Jones is back for another set, would be a sensible move, and could help finding the rapists. So what if the mood of the festival is spoilt?
We will blog about the night as soon as the press room reopens, until then, sad times @Latitude.

Porky The Poet missing Tim Wells and Hanif Kureishi watches his kids rock at Latitude Festival

Ok, so the last thing we tweeted last night was embarrassing, as talking about philosophy in the woods at 3AM can only mean one thing - and we don't want to talk about that now. By we, I don't mean the Nutshell representatives at Latitude but more specifically me and what used to be my body and can only assume is now my tent's body as the night spent in there completely reshaped it and made it alien to me. I don't know you anymore body! Go away!! But I digress, and will be doing more of that in this blog, so if you don't 'do' digressing, you're as alien to me as my body is and you should go away together.

Nutshell woke up early today and spent ages queuing for various things before hitting the stages. But hit them we did. And here's what we found:

Reclined like a seal on the pink plastic sofa on the Love Poetry stage you can vaguely make out Mr Porky The Poet. The reason the photo is taken from so far away is that, as you can see, the poetry arena is packed. The reason he resembles a seal is that he is recovering from last night and the 25 balloons of laughing gas that came with it. At least we are all a big happy family, each nursing a great, all-embracing hangover, but, again, I digress. Phill Jupitus starts his set with laughing gas and follows with a Christmas poem, 'Father's Christmas' - just as timely as this month's edition of Vogue, which tells us that it is now time to start buying fur coats again. After revealing to the crowd, 20% kids and 30% parents, that Santa doesn't exist but is in fact a lie of 'I've never had sex with that woman' or 'They have weapons of mass destruction' proportions, Phill Jupitus takes a moment to mention fellow poet Tim Wells 'who is not here, but fucking should be' before moving on to two poems about celebrities. The first one, about Paul McCartney, is preceded by a long anecdote that has the crowd in stitches - man meets celebrity, man makes a fool of himself - and then by the poem itself which is sweet and carried the weight of such an extensive introduction well, the crowd is pleased and makes itself heard. The next poem is about Russell Brand, he introduces it by saying that, when he met him, he was charming, bright, fun, smelt like flowers and ladies, but 'prior to that I thought he was a dick' which, somehow, gets waves of approving cheering and ends the set nicely.

Before him, keeping the tent warm was Tim Cockburn who was sweet in his indie references (Belle and Sebastian and The Working Men's club) and topics, a lot about love and relationships ' No Jennifer, we were never beige,' and a grand finale villanelle about a sticker seen on a microwave at a pub he used to work at which read 'Delayed Erupting Boiling'.

At 2PM it was the turn of Hanif Kureishi reading extracts from The Buddha of Suburbia accompanied by Lola Perrin at the piano - which made it really engaging and atmospheric and in contrast, made the funny moments really stand out. Kureishi has recently re-read The Buddha of Suburbia in preparation to this, and admits that although this is not a biographical novel, he found many biographical and personal references to his family life which weaved themselves into the net of fiction and moved him, unexpectedly. As appropriate to this novel, the questions asked by the crowd were mainly political ones. Of growing up in 60s London he says that it's not like it was a different culture, but that there was no culture whatsoever 'If you went around saying the word 'culture' they'd want to kill you,', and that he became a writer because it was impossible to speak to anyone there. When challenged by someone else in the audience that also came from Bromley, asking why he thought such a cultureless area produced so many talented people through the years, he replied that it has good, quick train access to London. Later, he also ventures in the perilous area of multiculturalism saying 'I used to be interested in multiculturalism, but now I am fed up with it. People are now using it to exclude themselves from what they have in common.' Of Islams he says 'Radical Islam doesn't like books and I write them for a living, so we don't have that much in common.'

Somewhere through the Q&A Kureishi manages to mention his sons' band 'Boycott Mondays', who'll be playing later on. I guess now we know the reason behind his appearance today, thank you guys.

Just after Kureishi, guess who come on stage nursing an evil hangover? Yes, Bret Easton Ellis again. I am not sure I should indulge myself and write more about him here, so I think i'll tweet instead. So long.

Going 'up space' with Josie Long at Latitude

Comedy was the theme of this afternoons early jaunt, having shaken off the delights of the exuberance and later spine-crackingly uncomfortable night we headed to see our new old favourite Josie Long. Preceeded by the ever-present Ardal O'Hanlon it was clear that her audience and appeal has rapidly grown since the days of fringe busking, filling a giant tent of several thousand with crowds waiting eagerly outside.

It was delightful to see her brave that most difficult and demanding of comedic disciplines, improvisation, with such success. Her essex-girl nail-technician-come-astronaut persona who had just been 'up space' informed us of 'space the universe, and that shit', reliably revealing to us the meaning of life... 'have you heard of N dubz???', and of the biggest thing you can see from space? 'Blue Water' of course, being much classier than Thurrock or the Westfield Centre.

She has clearly grown in confidence since I last saw her, not surprising given her own rocketing to fame over the past two years, she effortlessly played the audience and will remain firmly on the comedy circuit.

Wendy Cope @ Latitude Festival

Wendy Cope is charming and reads poetry that speaks directly to the listener, any listener who might want to stop and connect. Her verse, often in rhyme, has a musicality which really works read out loud. It's clear, simple, almost child-like at times and brilliantly funny. 'Loss' ends with 'his absence wasn't a problem, but the corkscrew had gone as well.'
A haiku titled something like 'looking out of my back window without my glasses on' rings a bell and goes:
What's that amazing new yellow flower?
Oh yes
A football
Another, touches the pressing problem of lack - or scarcity - of adultery in The Archers. We like!