Six tunes inspired by our first trip to Latitude Festival last Sunday. Enjoy!
First Word
Regular readers of this nonsense will recall posts from weekends spent at the now-defunct Black Deer Festival a couple of years back. We decided to try out a bigger event this year, choosing what my friend Ken Macdonald refers to as “the Waitrose of Festivals”. Latitude was twenty years old in 2026 and, having perused the bands on show, we decided to dip our toe in the famous lake by taking a day ticket for Sunday. Our concern about missing out on David Byrne’s Friday headline slot was mitigated by having tickets for one of his brilliant sold-out shows in Edinburgh on the Monday before.
We took the van down and parked up at a quiet beach site where a short walk connected us to a 20 min shuttle bus to the festival. Walking in, all the familiar sights of a festival were there – multifarious foodstalls, water points, hippy clothing outlets (still!!), busy tented bars and the associated toilet queues. But it was just so much bigger. We decided to concentrate on the main music stages, leaving the smaller stages and much-vaunted venues for comedy and arts for a future trip.
The weather was thankfully slightly cooler than the heatwave which had turned the festival site into the English equivalent of the Kansas dustbowl. A breeze and some clouds giving occasional respite from the warm sun. And it was the most relaxed outdoor music event, I’ve ever attended – full of families and everyone was just so chilled. Even me, with children running everywhere. Kinda…
Thelma & Louise – Panic Shack (2025)
Opening the Sunday afternoon on the (main) Obelisk Stage was something called the Alex James Britpop Classical. And as we arrived in the arena, I was taken aback to find such a huge crowd filling the space for the erstwhile Blur bassist and his large multi-instrumental ensemble. The idea seems to be that James and his many nameless pals (backed by sizable string and brass sections) play all your favourite Britpop tunes from all your favourite Britpop bands. God knows what his Blur bandmates think of this glorified karaoke, but the former 90s youngsters swelling the crowd (many along with their own kids) absolutely lapped it up. Occasionally, the forgotten singer of one of the tunes being covered (hello again Saffron of Republica and Gary of Reef) trotted out to singalonga Alex on their hit (Ready To Go and Place Your Hands, if you’ve forgotten). The only time this ploy half-worked was when Phil Daniels came on to (slightly over) do his legendary Parklife spoken vocal. Some songs were put into medley format which sounded less like a mash-up and more like a ‘Stars on 45’ throwback to my ears.
I gave up and headed across the field to the Second Stage in search of something more authentic. I first came across Panic Shack through their 2022 indie hit The Ick which got a lot of play on 6Music – “You do not shoosh me in the cinema!!”. Last year’s Thelma and Louise single caught my ear too when I heard it on the Mickey Bradley Record Show but nothing had quite prepared me for the full aural assault of the (almost) girl band live. I say almost as their brilliant drummer Nick, who was at the root of their powerful and very loud set, is the only male in the Welsh five-piece. Lined up across the stage, the girls were just throwing everything they had at their gloriously infectious shouty punk rock, leaping about and having the time of their lives. Their pose-striking during the drops in their thunderous live version of early single Jiu Jits You was truly laugh-out-loud funny. I’m not sure what it says about a 66-year-old bloke who can get so excited by this visceral punk noise, but I did!
My Perfect Cousin – The Undertones (1980)
After picking up some cold drinks, we headed back to the Obelisk arena where Mickey Bradley (he of the Radio Show) and his showbiz chums were due on the main stage. The thousands of Britpoppers were nowhere to be seen and as we joined the gathering of a few hundred people of a certain age at the front of the stage we could see that the Undertones were already out there attempting to do some sort of soundcheck which, from the expressions on their faces, was not going particularly well. After much gesticulating at the desk there was some general shrugging that this was the best it was going to be and they retreated to stand at the back of the stage for five minutes and then walked back on to start playing to the sound of Van’s And It Stoned Me. Even for a band as unassuming as the Undertones, that was a low-key start to a performance!
My love for Derry’s finest band has been laid out before in this blog and WIS 19May23 (backstage at the Glasgow Apollo in 1980) and WIS 27Sep24 (44 years later, they did play Mars Bar!) tell you all you ever need to know about the band – and more. So, as well as enthuse about their Latitude performance in this post, I’m going to give singer Paul McLoone a shout-out. After splitting up in 1983, when the guitar-wielding O’Neil brothers (John and Damian) got back together with drummer Billy Doherty and the aforementioned Mr Bradley in 1999, they needed a replacement for singer Feargal Sharkey who wasn’t interested in joining them. McLoone was a radio presenter and producer and had also been in a band called the Carrellines with Doherty. He joined up for a few live dates and has been with the band ever since. His exuberant stage presence is a far cry from Sharkey’s original style but as I watched him work the ever-growing crowd last Sunday, he was exactly what the band needed for Festival performances like this – his gentle goading of those in the Vodaphone-sponsored seats at the back amused the hardcore singing along at the front. With Phil Daniels watching on from the side of the stage, the set sensibly leaned heavily on the first two LPs and their hit singles. Although the sound balance issues were never fully resolved, highlights for me were Jump Boys, Male Model and the glory that is Tearproof. The ‘difficult’ third album was represented by It’s Gonna Happen and the wonderful When Saturday Comes and we even got The Love Parade. But I’m going to playlist their set finisher because as clever, witty pop music goes, Damian and Mickey’s My Perfect Cousin ticks every box for me. Those Britpop kids didn’t know what they were missing.
Shadowplay – Joy Division (1979)
And so, following Messrs James and Bradley, we come to our third celebrity bass player of the afternoon. As a founding member of both Joy Division and New Order, Peter Hook could potentially lay claim to being the most well-known of the three. He’s certainly the one who has fully commercialised his musical past as a pioneering post-punk bassist with a unique high-register style. A robust and abrasive character, I recall seeing him at the Book Festival in Edinburgh in 2013, promoting his first book Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division with author Ian Rankin chairing the discussion. It was a highly entertaining hour of conversation but I recall thinking he must have been difficult to be in a band with!
I was lucky enough to see Joy Division at the Glasgow Apollo in October 1979 when they supported Buzzcocks. Although I had gone to see the latter, I was mesmerised by the sight of Ian Curtis flailing around his microphone while singing in that voice. As for New Order, despite admiring their music and having a collection of all their singles from Ceremony in 1981, through Blue Monday and Thieves Like Us to Touched by the Hand of God in 1987, I only saw them play live once. It was just as they were forming in the aftermath of the death of Ian Curtis and they played the unlikely venue of the Plaza Ballroom at Eglington Toll in Glasgow – see WIS 15Sep23.
Aware his unsparing memoirs and his legal wrangling over royalties had made him a polarising figure, I stepped into the Second Stage tent with some trepidation. It was clear that the band were having similar sound problems to the Undertones – there was much gesticulation to the desk during the early songs. In my humble opinion, everything was mixed too high and we ended up retreating to edge of the tent to listen, where the distance brought a little less distortion. Hook’s project with the Light to play Joy Division and New Order songs gets some criticism from some critics for being nothing more than a glorified covers act. However, as one of the key members of both bands, I don’t deny him the right to do his emotional continuity thing. The songs are musically very powerful to hear live – even with a poor stage mix. But my main takeaway from this set was Hook’s voice fails to measure up to either Ian Curtis or Bernard Sumner which, sadly, detracts from the experience. The setlist contained Shadowplay, my favourite track from Unknown Pleasures and I am playlisting the original in all it’s moody glory.
Glad – Saint Etienne (2025)
Having grabbed some more sustenance, our sunny Sunday afternoon continued back at the Obelisk stage, where David Gray was entertaining a sizable crowd. I’d pretty much lost touch with his work after the enormous success of his 1999 LP White Ladder. But the internet tells me he has been recording and releasing records every few years for the last 25 years. Clad in what I can only assume was a stylist-advised baggy double-breasted beige suit, he was surrounded by an array of hugely talented professional musicians. Several vintage guitars (1950s Fender telecasters and scuffed Gibson J-45s) were being beautifully played and the ageing drummer was using his brushes on his cymbals with laser precision. In front of all this, Gray’s trademark vocal was coming through loud and clear. However, it wasn’t really doing it for me, so I left Lynn to enjoy it and headed back to the second stage to catch another 90s throwback.
Having been recording and performing on and off since 1990, Saint Etienne are currently in the midst of their farewell tour as they decided to make their 2025 album International their final recording. I’ve talked before on this blog about the nineties being a bit of a blur to me as it was the ‘got married and had kids that didn’t sleep’ decade. But I do recall the impact of the band’s debut LP Foxbase Alpha and its follow up So Tough, although they were never a band that I listened to a lot. Despite that, I really enjoyed their set at Latitude. Sarah Cracknell still has the voice and, supported by a multi-instrumentalist and a drummer, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs can still get the beats going from their keyboards, synths and samplers. There was a large and very supportive crowd in the tent who appreciated the career-spanning set, which featured early tracks like Nothing Can Stop Us and Spring as well as their ubiquitous cover of Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart. But the song that really jumped out for me when played live was Glad, the lead track from their final LP last year. It’s a terrific tune and was one of the hundred tracks in a 2025 new music playlist that I used to resurrect this blog last December – WIS 2025 Tracks – and it is getting picked for this blog too.
As a postscript, my mate Dave (who has done a couple of guest blogs for WIS) has highly recommended the two music history books written by the band’s Bob Stanley. These are Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop and Let’s Do It: The Birth of Pop Music: A History. Clearly Stanley is a fan of the colon and I will be seeking these out forthwith. Cheers, Dave!
R&B – English Teacher (2024)
Regular readers of this blog (if there is such a thing) will be aware I have been banging on about English Teacher since I first heard their Mercury-winning LP This Could Be Texas in 2024. I’ve found excuses to playlist a track from that record on three different occasions since then and I finally got to see them play a terrific live set in November of last year at the Barrowlands. Along with The Flaming Lips, their presence on the Sunday bill at Latitude was one of the main drivers for using this day as our first visit.
I’m delighted to say they were even better live this time round. Their stage sound mix was perfect and allowed the audience to enjoy what I somewhat embarrassingly previously referred to as their “kaleidoscopic musical creativity”. (I know!) Extensive touring has sharpened the dynamic execution of their ‘genre-bending’ songs even further – the shifting time signatures and the tightly controlled explosions of sound are just astounding. And while the inventive guitar playing of Lewis Whiting always catches the eye, it is Nicholas Eden’s fluid, melodic bass playing and Douglas Frost’s thoughtful precision drumming that really catches the ear and drives the songs. And in the middle of all this musical dexterity, the stage presence of Lily Fontaine thrives. She seems bursting with confidence, bouncing on her toes to get to the microphone and let her voice be heard. She remains determinedly down to earth, though. “Do you like my new hat?”, she asks the audience after opening with The World’s Greatest Paving Slab. “I got it in Middlesbrough”.
The elephant in the …erm… tent was the lack of new recorded music. As a fan of the band, it feels like they are trying to outdo the Stone Roses in terms of dragging their heels in following up their stellar debut LP, which was recorded back in 2023. When I saw them last year, they had only one new song in the set, Billboards. It was joined this time by three others: Man, Toothpick and the mysteriously named Dog Called Ohm. All of which sounded great. They seem acutely aware of their lack of new recorded material with Lily apologising to the crowd: “I know, I know, it’s coming, it’s coming.” However, a later comment suggested it would be next year before something emerges! So, I’m going to playlist a fourth track from the first LP. R&B was actually released as a single back in 2021 but was re-recorded for the album. Fontaine’s lyrics address her being unfairly pigeonholed into a specific music genre because of her mixed-race heritage: “Despite appearances, I haven’t got the voice for R&B.” Maybe aware of the number of times she has performed it, she added the word “still” into the last chorus…
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1 – The Flaming Lips (2002)
And so to the headliners – well, the Second Stage headliners. While Lewis Capaldi was doing his crowd-pleasing thing up on the Obelisk Stage, a healthy and boisterous crowd was squeezed into the tent for Wayne Coyne to do his thing. You couldn’t get two more diverse acts – the young Scotsman with his acoustic guitar and the acid shaman with just about everything under the sun going on, usually in dayglo psychedelic colours.
Talk to anyone who has seen the Flaming Lips and they will say you have to experience them live. Our first chance to do this was what took us down to dusty, dry Suffolk. They did not disappoint. I’m not really a fan of bands who have big showy stage acts but there is something so disarmingly crazy and joyful about their use of confetti cannons, dozens of large latex balloons and numerous inflatable props that makes it all ridiculously charming and you smile all the way through the show.
Opening with the hymn-like “The stars are so big/I am so small/Do I stand a chance”, Coyne’s ‘Fearless Freaks’ then drop into Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1, complete with giant inflatable robots wobbling on the stage and threatening to swallow up the singer. As they proceed to bass synth blasts of Part 2, the cannons fire and lasers shoot light everywhere as everyone tries to reach up to the balloons barrelling round the crowd. A moody light-swinging The Spark That Fled was followed by Coyne, somewhat inexplicably, climbing into a Wonder Woman suit to perform a poignant cover of the late Daniel Johnston’s True Love Will Find You in the End, which featured some beautifully sad pedal steel playing.
The party then reignites with the old Chemical Brothers collaboration The Golden Path, with two large star-headed inflatable dancers grooving and grinning on the stage. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song is delivered using huge rotating eyeballs and lips props and a crowd-pleasing Do You Realize?? is performed under a inflatable rainbow. An overlong and probably unnecessary cover of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs delays the finale of Race for the Prize as the confetti floats down again. The song ends with Coyne bringing on a huge silver balloon spelling out FUCK YEAH LATITUDE! and throwing it into the crowd. And then Lynn and I walk out into the warm darkness of Suffolk, smiling at the joyful absurdity of it all.
Last Word
This has been thrown together very quickly in the immediate aftermath of the festival, so please excuse it being even more rambling and incoherent than normal. If that is possible!
AR
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