An off-the-cuff thought on music and festivals.

I'm not going to Glastonbury. Indeed I never sought to do so. Were I there you would, without any doubt, find me at one of the smaller stages.
As it turns out of the three main stage headline acts, following Dave Grohl's unfortunate and unforeseeable accident just recently resulting in the withdrawal of Foo Fighters and a band that I would very much like to see live, I have seen two of the now Glastonbury 2015 headline acts before and both when playing their first ever significant festival headline set. As for Kanye West, the other headline artist/act, let's just say that I'm not sad about missing that. It's quite simply not my thing.
I seem to have no usable pictures of Florence and The Machine playing Latitude Festival 2010, although I remember that the performance was excellent. As for Arcade Fire, well that was the final impetus that prompted me into festival-going - and that was Latitude Festival 2007. I shall not be at Latitude 2015 either but I'll be out and about at other festivals over the coming summer.
Whatever festivals you may be headed to have a great time and remember the things that become memorable are often the acts on the small stages and including the ones that you have almost no, or indeed any, prior knowledge of. My personal view is that festival line-ups, although usually announced from the head-liners down, are best assessed from the bottom up; that is by examining those artists playing on small stages and also the opening acts on any stage. I don't see any reason to change my view - it is a issue of sustainability - in the light of what I saw and heard last year. Some will cut the grade and others won't - but at the very least you will know it for real.

To reinforce that idea - and just in case you arrive five days early for some reason - check this out. I pretty much guarantee that you won't regret doing so.

The Midnight Novel (2014) is a wonderful LP.

I do hope that the weather is kind, that everyone stays safe and has a wonderful time at any and all festivals.

Why music really matters (Part 3) - just because it does.

I've seen and heard a great deal of new music in 2010 and for that I am extremely thankful.  When it comes to taking stock, for the season of those end-of-year lists is fast approaching, it makes life challenging but also great fun.
What I find hardest to understand let alone to explain to others is why I like the music I do (and not that I don't) and why it changes.  On a day-by-day-basis I'm fine with it - just fits the mood or some other largely random trigger, such as hearing something played on the radio that brings back a particular time or memory.
It is the longer term trends, particularly the way I feel about music and the associated changes that I'm less certain about.  That is a shame because, in a deeper sense, I think this is the more fascinating aspect for it also begs the implicit question: "What is it about music, taken in all its forms, that makes it have such universal importance to human-kind?"  If it were simply an ephemeral pleasure I doubt it could invoke such passion and sometimes vehement disagreement.
The earlier posts are here:
Why Music Really Matters (Part 2)
Why Music Really Matters


I seem to have gone all philosophical on you, dear readers, but I am not going to apologise.  It also shows just how little, even now, we understand the detailed processes of the human brain that underlie culture in the broadest sense.
If this just sends you running for a copy of 'Steps - Gold' then it only serves to my illustrate my point but, equally, I must never judge you on your choices...


To lighten proceedings I'll add a few more pictures and thoughts from the last couple of years.  They will, of couse, be subject to my own bias in such matters...


This first artist, who I saw at EOTR 2010 (by the way the remainder of the tickets for EOTR 2011 are now on sale) has already been mentioned here.

Just testing: Jessica Lea Mayfield had to put her guitar back in tune and, as she was playing solo, bantered with the audience to fill the void in the performance.
I have found myself listening to the album 'With Blasphemy So Heartfelt' more and more in the last couple of months.  Her second album, slated for release in spring 2011, will be interesting indeed and she played a couple of tracks from it in this set.


One of the first artists I saw at Latitude 2007, on the Lake Stage on the Friday, was Cate Le Bon (no relation to Duran Duran's Simon, by the way).  It was her first festival performance and, to all intents and purposes, my first as a member of the crowd.  I have pictures that I took then and the crowd was numbered in dozens.  We crossed paths again at EOTR 2010 and it made me realise that I should have included (the much delayed) album 'Me Oh My' in my 2009 ' best-of' list.

Cate Le Bon played the (main) Garden Stage at EOTR 2010 on Friday afternoon.
Her first attempt at an album, 'Pet Deaths' was abandoned. In the meantime she released a 7" single, 'Can't Drag Me Down' and Welsh language 10" EP ' Edrych Yn Llygaid Ceffyl Benthyg'.

No complaints from the crowd of, I estimate, well the right side of a thousand.

If we can't work out the science it does not detract from the experience. Music matters because it does and why should we feel the need to justify that?

Drown Your Heart Again - New Music 2010 - Part 18

This really follows on from my post yesterday.  It is a discovery I made just days ago and somehow it seems a very appropriate one given the topics, as they pertain to my return to festival-going in 2007.

The Strange Death of Liberal England was one of the first bands that, until the moment they walked on stage, I was completely unaware of.

Here they are on the then 'Uncut Stage' at Latitude 2007 on Saturday. Starting in 2010 this is now sponsored by 'Word Magazine' but la plus ça change... 
They were the band that did not speak however - they just sung and played - hence the placards!  I thought over the last year or two that, for all their relevance in 2010 and not least as a rock band, they might have gone the same way as Liberal England.  I'm very glad to report that the Southsea band, it is actually a five-piece then and now, is still going strong.

Forward March! (2007) was a solid production even if it was slightly at odds with the prevailing trends at that time. I'm just thrilled to see that they are back and firing on all guns and I would like to see the band live once again.

The follow up could well prove to be an important step: bad times and good music are often contradictory in the sense that they are complementary.  The album is released (Republic of Music) on CD and d/l on 13 September 2010.

New Music 2010 - albums, festivals and things

Don't second guess your feelings

you were right from the start.
And I noticed she's your lover
but she's nowhere near your heart.

This city is for strangers
like the sky is for the stars.
I think it's very dangerous
if we do not take what's ours.

It is true that I have written little in the last fortnight but that is in large part because I have been listening to and reading about new music. But not just new music, as the above lyric implies...

Some cities come round again and again; and New York is one of them. Only by luck did I happen to catch some of Jamay (Jaime Seerman) at Latitude 2007 - I had never heard of her then but the lyrics above are from 'Blue or Gray' on her album Autumn Fallin'. One that I then bought and have never forgotten. In many ways I am far better informed these days, which is mostly good, but the thrill of discovering quite unknown acts at a festival is not something I would wish to forgo. Another New York band, that I am already aware of so the foregoing does not really apply, is this:

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, recently added to the line up for Latitude 2010, is one I'd much wished to hear live though did not expect to and this was, in my opinion, one much under-rated album of 2009. 
Levelled against it is that it is not particularly original - shoe-gaze circa 1986 being something I read as a criticism. Well the band members are certainly not old enough to remember that first time around and so, although it seems to have passed me by, I see no reason not to take it at face value now and given the more recent EP (the excellent 'Higher Than The Stars') it is something that I'm now even less inclined to concern myself about.

Lots more, it seems... New Music 2010 - Part 2

I'm still working on a list of the live performances that I have enjoyed the most in 2009. They seem to fall in to two fairly distinct categories; on one hand those that I was well aware of from recorded output and thus wanted to hear live and, on the other hand, ones that were essentially an unknown proposition. Many in this latter category were new acts and many of those will be releasing their first full LP in 2010.
This one is released by Wichita Recordings (12" LP, CD, d/l) on January 25, 2010 in the UK.

The Big Black and The Blue is the follow-up to 2009 EP Drunken Trees.

First Aid Kit, while an act that fell in the latter category, are very likely to appear in my 'Best of 2009 - live!' and which I hope to have posted by the end of tomorrow.

Another band releasing an album in 2010, this time their second, is miles away from Swedish acoustic in style and is London's New Young Pony Club. I can't wait and it too has live music connotations: July 2007 saw me at a festival for the first time in the modern era and the first headline act I saw there, on the Friday evening on the Sunrise Stage at Latitude 2007, was NYPC who had just released their début album, Fantastic Playroom. That was probably pretty much the moment that I realized being at a festival was something that I really did want to do and not simply some nostalgia-induced aberration. As yet I do not know the title or release date for this, but the fact that is confirmed is heartening. The last was released by Modular Recordings but I have no confirmation of that for this one.

Things you just discover --- Songs for Edna.

It is not possible to keep up with all that is going on but there will always be interesting new discoveries. This is one of them and yet another that comes from Brighton. The Edna of the album title is Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950) who was the first woman to receive the Pulizer Prize for Poetry, for The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923). Caroline Weeks has appeared in these pages before however, if only in pictures as her alter ego Ginger Lee as part of Bat For Lashes' band at Latitude 2007.

This picture was taken by Natasha 'Bat For Lashes' Khan.

The album is available on vinyl Manimal Vinyl Records (MANI 004).

I suspect that it will not be an album threatening the best-seller lists of 2009 and that is a shame. The seemingly recherché source material does not mean that this album is in any way difficult or inaccessible. It is the sublime; neither obviously poems set to music nor music to accompany poems and what you didn't know you would probably never even suspect.

Latitude 2009

Just a very quick note: Tickets for the fourth installment of Latitude, held as always at Henham Park, Suffolk, went on sale at 7pm UST (GMT) this evening - 23 March 2009. It sold out well in advance in 2008, so don't ponder too long before joining in. The dates are 17 - 19 July 2009, with the camping area opening from around midday on 16 July.
The main stage headline acts are:

Friday: Grace Jones
Saturday: The Pet Shop Boys
Sunday: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

For the latest additions see here Latitide 2009 - news and for criticism see here.

I was there in 2007 and 2008 and, don't even doubt it, I'm going again in 2009.

See you there?

More albums I want - 2008, part 7.

Here goes with another selection from 2008 and these are already on order and, indeed the last I already have. One of the most common enquiries here in the last few weeks are about who is supporting Seth Lakeman on his autumn UK tour. I don't know and, when I saw Seth Lakeman live in Frome in July the support act was not advertised in advance as far as I could find.

Only later, when it finally occurred to me that she was not completely overshadowed by Seth Lakeman, I realised that should have bought this at the time but I didn't. Now I have it on order and can't wait to hear her renditions of delta blues and rock again.

With backing musicians playing various instruments on various tracks, this is not the same as the remarkably visceral, if slightly messy, solo performance that she provided when supporting Seth Lakeman back in July. That is not to say that I was disappointed, for I wasn't, but I did wonder at the time that perhaps with backing musicians...
I also, rather contrary-wise, anticipated not liking the album as much. I was possibly wrong on both counts: NOT playing solo seems to make her sound more focussed on CD. Live with a band I can't say but now I wonder.

That topic tempts me to mention another artist of whom, until very recently indeed, I was completely unaware:

Kelly Richey - Carry The Light (2008)

High school history teacher and also blues-rock guitarist, this album is on US import only and that is a pity.

In a completely different style, but still quite American in a totally different sense, is the pop-fusion trio called Brazilian Girls. Brazilian they are not and the only female is Sabina Sciubba, an Italian New Yorker bought up in France and Germany, while Didi Gutman is Argentinian and the trio is completed by Aaron Johnston. The music, which involves a host of guest musicians, is eclectic but involves elements of pop, dance and electronica combined with any other influence that took their fancy (and they are very many and varied) in an unconsciously free-flowing way and similarly employs lyrics in at least five languages, several of which are often combined in one song. It is not however music difficult to listen to, far from it in fact, and I find it hard to pick favourites but here goes:

• Losing Myself
• Berlin
• L'interprete
• I Want Out
  

Some artists have been invoked as influences and Blondie is the one I have seen cited most often. I think that that is an invidious comparison when, as it often is, taken too far. This album doesn't actually, when taken as a whole, sound much like anyone else well known and this is exactly why its unpredictability is so welcome and refreshing - take it as it comes and it is a delight to listen to again and again.
That there are very slight similarities at times, particularly in the prominence of the vocals, that at times make me think CSS - all of who are Brazilian and, Adriano Cintra aside, female - is perhaps no great surprise. While the second CSS album, Donkey (2008), is greatly different to their 2006 début, CSS, it remains a splendid example of how something rather improbable can take hold and soon become something unforgettable; at Glastonbury 2007 they even made the sun come out! I had seen the Glastonbury footage before I saw them at Latitude 2007 in the sunshine a couple of weeks later and, given the circumstances of their formation, they were simply electrifying playing live. That trait, I strongly suspect, is also true of Brazilian Girls and I hope to get the chance to find out.

Two more bands that amazed me...

British Sea Power were, as I have already mentioned and had also been led to believe, simply terrific live. What I did not anticipate is that I would soon feel the same way about two other bands, both of which come with at least some kind of reputation that might possibly have presaged a disappointment.

Foals - live on the Obelisk Stage @ Latitude 2008.

While Foals have been hotly tipped since they first appeared, and never more so than for their live performances on which their reputation is built, it does predispose one to worrisome thoughts. Their set was, however, one of the best I have ever heard and I now understand what all the fuss is about! If this is what "math rock" really means then I'm a convert now...

I have mentioned acts on the Lake Stage (BBC Radio 1 - Huw Stephens - Introducing...) before and I spent a great deal of time there at Latitude 2007. While I did not spend as much time there this year it was, regardless, the venue graced by the last of my "top three" bands!

The Beep Seals live @ Latitude 2008 on 19th July 2008.

The break-down to the final track of the set was just incredible - in both scope and disciplined execution - and without doubt it takes a lot of practice to make such apparent ad lib chaos so perfect...
They did it, with no second thoughts, and it was quite simply AWESOME.

To look into the eyes of a borrowed horse...

One thing I did this morning, as part of the preparations, was to have a good lie-in and then a soak in a hot bath. Whatever the weather this coming weekend neither of these little luxuries is going to be possible. Both yesterday afternoon/evening and today I've been having a retrospective of Latitude 2007. While I already owned music by some of the artists, which is what really prompted me to go in the first place, it is only when I thought about it in this way it that I realised what an influence it has had on the music I have acquired in the last year.

Some of it has become mainstream in 2007-8, some of it hasn't, but that aspect doesn't bother me a bit. It would perhaps be possible to live entirely within the small world of music on the radio but it would be an unwelcome challenge. On the other hand it is getting more difficult but no less interesting, almost by the week, to keep tabs on new music. Here is one such item, long awaited but finally released two weeks ago by new artist Cate le Bon who I first heard at Latitude 2007, that only makes that issue more obviously difficult!

Edrych yn llygaid ceffyl benthyg. To look into the eyes of a borrowed horse.

It is hard to tell what might be the greater problem: the fact that it is only released as a 10" (45 rpm) EP, limited to just 400 copies all on heavy ivory-white vinyl (Peski 009) and only available through independent retailers, or the fact that it is entirely sung in Welsh! The title of this post is a mere translation. It is a saying similar in meaning to the phrase "to look a gift horse in the mouth" but rather more ambiguous.
This item is clearly not going to bother the UK charts, whether single or album, but it is worth noting that the album Rockferry, which is far and away the biggest selling in the UK in 2008, is the first by another Welsh singer-songwriter - Aimée Duffy - who hails from Nefyn.

In fact it is tempting to compile a list (in no order other than alphabetical) comprising ten of the acts that I most enjoyed at Latitude 2007:

• Arcade Fire
• Bat For Lashes
• Cate Le Bon
• Charlotte Hatherley
  
• CSS
• Jarvis Cocker
• Kate Nash
• New Young Pony Club
• Slow Club*
• Stephanie Dosen

And here, using last year's Festival guide but compiled today, are ten more that I now wish that I had seen:

• Blood Red Shoes
• Emmy The Great*
• Jaymay
• Joan As Policewoman
• Joe Lean and The Jing Jang Jong*
• Make Model
• Noah & The Whale*
• Patrick Wolf
• Scouting For Girls
• The Teenagers

* These artists are also appearing again at Latitude 2008 and so I will have a second chance but I can see the conflicts, between bands I want to hear but playing on different stages at the same time, are going to be even more acute this year.
Those highlighted in green have (from memory) been mentioned, at least in passing, in my blog but these are not currently links. I can promise myself one thing and that it is not going to be possible other than to make such mistakes again. That is probably the mark of a good festival!

2007 - Things that I forgot to mention...

The title says it all - they are many and varied but perhaps that is actually a good thing! In 2007 I bought more new music than in any previous year and, despite that, my wants list is longer than ever. In many ways I'd regard that as a result and I even took myself to see live music in a quantity that I've never done before and it is something I fully intend to do again in 2008 because picking highlights is almost impossible.

Here are a few more of my pictures instead [click on any of them them to see larger versions]:

Arcade Fire live @ Latitude 2007.

While Damon Albarn's latest vehicle, The Good, The Bad and The Queen was, for all its technical perfection, just about as involving live as watching a music DVD it still had its merits and not least amongst them Paul Simonon [The Clash] on bass guitar.

I am old enough to remember the Brit-pop duelling in the early 1990s and so it was a relief to discover that, maybe older and wiser, Jarvis Cocker remains the artist that he was. Sure he can sing, and write songs too, but above all he is a performance artist and also a comedian of the highest order.

Jarvis Cocker live @ Latitude 2007.

Live music is all about enjoyment and few, if any, embody that as completely as CSS. They spent almost the whole of 2007 touring and, to be quite honest, conveyed the impression that nothing else could have pleased them more...

Lovefoxxx of CSS live @ Latitude 2007.

Wales, Welsh artists, and the Welsh language...

Just about thirty miles from here as the crow flies lies a country that has produced at least its fair share of well known popular artists of many genres. Here are a few that come to mind, in no particular order: Shirley Bassey, Aled Jones, The Automatic, Lostprophets, Super Furry Animals, Charlotte Church, Catatonia, The Stereophonics, Tom Jones, Goldie Lookin' Chain, The Manic Street Preachers... and so the list goes on.
They all of course hail from Wales but what few of them do is sing in Welsh. [Just in case anyone here is confusing Welsh accents or dialect (of English) I'm referring to the Welsh language here - that which sounds, and if seen written, seems about as familiar as would Finnish for example.] I'm already on record as saying that I have no problem with foreign language music and I've mentioned one Welsh language artist already...

Well, if you are curious to hear what modern Welsh language music sounds like I have two more you might care to listen to!

Cerys Matthews, formerly the lead singer with Catatonia in the late 1990s has released two solo albums - Cock A Hoop (2003) and Never Said Goodbye (2006), on which only the occasional track is sung in Welsh - but she is however well known as a collector of traditional Welsh language songs. I have just learned today of her forthcoming EP, entirely sung in Welsh. I haven't heard it as yet, but I'm working on getting a copy. It is entitled Awyren (Aeroplane) and is due to be released on 15th October 2007 on Cardiff-based label 'Kung Fu Records'.

Then there is Cate Le Bon, who is yet another artist I saw live at Latitude 2007. Like Gwenno Saunders and Cerys Matthews she is a native of South Wales and is bilingual. She is also fine writer of what some reviewers have labelled nu-folk - a term I don't actually particularly like and indie-alt-folk is probably far better if rather clumsy. What sets her apart from most is that she writes and sings pretty much equally in Welsh and English. She was the second act on the 'Lake Stage', promoted by BBC Radio 1, on Sunday with a set consisting of four tracks sung in English followed by another four sung in Welsh and, if truth be told, they were all very good. The relatively small crowd was probably a result of the collective hangover that can come from two full days spent at a festival... I've since read more glowing reports and she's definitely one to watch in 2007/8.

Apart from singing she mostly plays guitar, but sometimes keyboards and it is rumoured, but I never saw it myself, drums. Her début album, Pet Deaths, is due out before too long. Rumour has it that this may actually be preceded by a Welsh-language EP.

She seems to have the support of young fans too...

These three girls spent the whole set utterly absorbed in the music, probably planning their future careers, and as I left for the Obelisk Stage in order to catch The Hoosiers they were busy "interviewing" the camera operator for good measure!

Fed Up!

It is not me that is fed up, at least not at the moment!
'Fed Up' is a single by a Latitude 2007 artist that I was unable to get to hear live - Remi Nicole. I have heard a few tracks on the radio and I liked them all.

She has been much lauded and, having got hold of her single Fed Up c/w Go With The Flow today (needless to say on vinyl as such exists), I can see clearly why. By traditional logic she should sing hip-hop or urban grime but she just also happens to be a rather fine acoustic guitarist and songwriter as well. As such she has, probably wisely, decided that her future lies as a solo artist. On the back of this single it is hard to fault that choice...

The next single, Go Mr. Sunshine, is released on 20th August on 2 x 7" variants and even a CD.

The forthcoming album is showing all signs of being yet another much-anticipated release - by me at least. It all makes me wonder what is inspiring the London music scene at the moment. The thing about it is that this new generation of artists and bands is not only committed to live performance; they have often actually built their reputations on the basis of it. Of course not everything important happens in London, Brighton, Leeds, Glasgow and even Canada (for that matter). Way out west there lies a little-loved place called Staines...

The Strange Death of Liberal England.

I've been hearing whispers about this Portsmouth-based band for some time now and most of them have been as intriguing as they have been favourable. This could however cut both ways; I was thus glad to have the opportunity to check them out live on the Uncut stage at Latitude where they were playing the opening gig at lunch time on Sunday.

It was timely as their first eight-track mini-album Forward March! had been released the previous Monday on Fantastic Plastic Records, which ensured a sizable and enthusiastic turn out.

It was quite clear, even before the set started, that they have a loyal following and it was soon very clear to me why that is. In a set that could only last 40 minutes, why waste time talking? They didn't say a word, other than the sung lyrics, introducing themselves and the songs using hand-written and hand-held placards.

It was very effective and reminded me rather of the occasional frames, conveying plot details, that appeared flickeringly in the days of silent movies. What is more, if you look carefully at the these pictures, you will notice that this is a band very flexible when it comes to who plays which instrument on any particular song.

It all suits their ambitions and circumstances well, I have to say.

This may well be quite deliberate because as the band's name suggests (it is taken from a book of the same title and I'll let you find it and what it was about) they quite wilfully hark back to earlier days in their lyrical content but without any discernible influence from traditional music. The real issue is that they do it incredibly well and had they gone on for two hours longer I'd have happily missed whatever other acts I had planned to go and see!

In some ways, while less obviously obsessed with historical narrative, they reminded me of iLiKETRAiNS and that is another band I very much want to see live.

A Lily for the Spectre

While 'New Young Pony Club' was clearly an act far too metropolitan for the Sunrise Arena at Latitude 2007 it is actually also difficult to imagine an act for whom it could be a setting so absolutely perfect...

Her nu-folk songs - a genre I rather like anyway - are mostly trans-Atlantic rather than obviously British or American so that they are largely without place or time. Add to this the fact she is an artist who also has the folk-tradition of 'patter' between songs - it veered randomly but effortlessly between musings concerning disturbing the owls in the woods and the various hazards of festival toilets - down to a fine art and you can imagine this gig had all the potential to be a memorable one.

While she had swapped the sylvan glades of her native Wisconsin for those of rural Suffolk on a sunny Saturday lunchtime she clearly seemed quite at home there. The other thing is that I had never even heard of Stephanie Dosen until I bought my 'Festival Programme' when I arrived on the Thursday evening.

She is now signed to UK label Bella Union and her début UK album A Lily For The Spectre is available now from all good independent music stores.

While this is her UK début she has previously released an album, Ghosts, Mice and Vagabonds, in the US that is not currently available on Amazon.co.uk or seemingly even from the usually ever so dependable independent UK establishments. I have found four copies available from Amazon Marketplace sellers but the cheapest of these is GBP 25 and all are sent from the US anyway. Amazon.com, for what it is worth, is little better either.

You could however try buying it direct from her website: http://www.stephaniedosen.com/buy.htm It is currently available on CD for US$ 12.00 (about GBP 6.00) but do check whether you will incur shipping and also customs charges as these may well be very significant extra costs. [This information is provided in good faith but I can offer no warranties or guarantees - it is solely your responsibility to ensure that you are confident in the supply of the goods offered and of the security of the services provided by this seller.]

Next up for review - New Young Pony Club

Now in this case I had heard good things about NYPC but almost nothing of their material (except for the single 'Ice Cream') before Latitude and so, as they were headlining the Sunrise Arena on Friday evening, they were high on my list of "must see acts". In fact I was so confident that I would like it I actually ordered their album Fantastic Playroom, which was released on 9th July on Australian label 'Modular Recordings' even though they are a London band and on vinyl as it is available thus, the evening before departing. It actually arrived the day I returned and it was to prove a "good thing" - it instantly transported me back to the previous Friday evening and reminded me why a few bruised ribs were sustained in a wholly good cause.

The Sunset Arena was a venue too small for them and I can well see them performing on the Uncut Stage, or even the main stage, at this (or other similar events) next summer. I suspect that they might follow a trajectory similar to that which CSS have enjoyed in the last year.
The album Fastastic Playroom isn't as good as I expected it to be - it is, in a surprisingly measured and amazingly controlled sort of way, far better than I imagined it would be; perhaps I find it this way because it was a bit unusual to have heard them live before hearing the album? On the other hand it is very largely by playing live that they have secured their current enviable reputation. Go figure - as yet I can't - but no complaints!
Their live performance, whipped to a frenzy by icon-in-waiting Tahita Bulmer, really was quite special and certainly not rambling or self-indulgent. It was stopped once, fairly early on, when the barrier at the front of the stage collapsed and also terminated five minutes early; in both cases the reason given was "Health & Safety" and for once in this dangerously over-regulated world it actually seemed plausible!

This was the moment they launched the set with single 'Ice Cream'.

Photograpy was by this time getting rather difficult and by the time they performed 'The Bomb' it was impossible at the front of the boisterous crowd; not helped by an extremely uneven surface that, while the crowd was entirely good-natured, threatened to cause everyone to collapse in a huge heap. The Sunset Arena is a tent set up in what is really no more than a clearing in the woods and as such it is rather better suited to more earthy music...

Lattitude 2007, just go listen!

As well as the big names the fascinating variety of other acts was, for me perhaps, the greatest attraction of the line up. From pop to nu-folk to rock there was always something interesting to go and hear.
First I'll start with two of the catchiest pure UK pop songs of 2007:

The Hoosiers perform Worried About Ray while opening the main stage on Sunday.

The three of them looked a bit surprised by the space they had to occupy to be quite honest, as this was their first festival gig, but they soon grew in confidence and were actually quite impressive in sound if not in presence. It is, I suspect, going to be a very difficult single to follow and their début album does not appear until late August (Sony BMG).

As for Bolton band Cherry Ghost I was only able to catch the last track of their set on the Uncut Stage, which was the recent single 'People Help The People'. They looked really quite comfortable on a stage this size - arguably it would have suited 'The Hoosiers' better too - and the live version of the single bettered the recorded version in a number of ways. In retrospect I wish I had caught the whole of their live set but here they are...

Cherry Ghost's début album 'Thirst For Romance' was released (Heavenly Records) the previous Monday, 9th July. It is my suspicion that, one way or another, Cherry Ghost may turn out to be with us for longer than The Hoosiers.

CSS Roxxx

A great deal has been written about Brazilian band CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy) in the last nine months and much of it, it has to be said, sounds rather like hyperbole. The first track on their 2006 début album is even rather self-deprecatingly entitled 'CSS Suxxx'.
See them live and you'll probably discover that it isn't the case. You could well argue that the music itself isn't particularly ground breaking - you would be right too - but that is to miss the point altogether. This album is good enough to hold its own on CD - it is ultimately feel-good music - but CSS live is a quite different experience.

This is a band that is not only clearly loving the limelight but also making it shine brighter and, in Lovefoxxx (aka Luisá Matsushita), they also happen to have one of the most charismatic lead singers of the moment.

She came on stage at Latitude wearing a long grey shawl as they launched the set with 'Patins'...

This was soon removed to reveal the sparkling rainbow number that stunned Glastonbury...

... and it lasted the next four songs - this one is 'Alala'.

"I'm much too hot!" she announced as she kicked off her trainers, and then went on to peel the sparkly outfit off while still singing and dancing, part way through 'Art Bitch'!

She is the ultimate nightmare for Security too, liking nothing better than to abandon the stage proper to either sing in the pit, talk to the crowd or even indulge in a bit of crowd-surfing! (Indeed she did all of these things last Saturday and also announced that their second album will be released in December 2007, if SubPop didn't know it already!)

Off-stage again: Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex... was 'unplugged',
with the crowd providing the lead vocals!

Kate Nash - Latitude 2007 and the blue teapot...

I had such a great time at 'Latitude 2007', overdosing on live music, that it has taken this long to get my head around it all. Well almost a week has gone by and I've finally come to some conclusions! There were so many highlights that my choice of starting place is quite arbitrary...

I've decided to start with Kate Nash who performed in the far too small, and also stiflingly hot, 'Film and Music Tent' on Friday afternoon. Partly because I'd made damn sure I got to see this as I've being enjoying her so-called first single Foundations, and the 'b-sides' - which are all different on the three versions: a CD and two 7" vinyl singles - so much that I already intended to post a comment.

Of course it is not really her first single, that was a double a-side Caroline's A Victim/Birds released by MoshiMoshi Records earlier this year (and I reviewed it - see here) but that was in physical terms only available as a very limited 7" release.

The only question that I still had is can she really cut it as a live performer?

Kate Nash performing Birds live @ Latitude 2007. There was soon no doubt whatsoever that she is every bit as good live as when recorded.

Foundations live with stunning keyboard antics and the blue teapot.

The release of her eponymous début album has now been bought forward from late September to 6th August 2007.

Latitude Festival 2007 - live....

'Latitude 2007' was blessed with weather far better than could reasonably have been imagined. It was the 2007 festival to die for - because it had everything that you live for!

It did include headline acts, such as the awesome Arcade Fire, but also plenty of lesser known ones and that is what makes it special; it has taken me all this week to look at all the pictures I took and to ponder and eventually realise what really made 'Latitude 2007' special, which for me at least it most certainly was.

From start to finish it was simply so friendly an event, and one so well organised, that the fact that it was also, as regards artists, a totally awesome event from start to end was almost just a huge bonus.

The main performance area is entered by a bridge constructed across the lake...

The Obelisk stage was a strange, bleak and silent place just an hour after Arcade Fire finished their headline performance Sunday evening.