Latitude 2007 review: Saturday

Saturday’s music line-up is not to my tastes, so the early afternoon is spent in the comedy tent and walking around aimlessly until The Hold Steady’s tea-time main stage slot. There’s something deeply rooted in my brain that tells me it’s wrong to like The Hold Steady because of their age. But like The Magic Numbers yesterday, they really encapsulate the mood of the festival, and despite myself, I enjoy their energetic set.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are quite similar sonically but lose out on points due to Alec Ounsworth’s whiny voice. The crowd are happy though, boosted by increased day-ticket punters, and many of them, including me, nip down to the Lake stage for a bit of Friendly Fires, the perfect warm-up for the world’s best party band, CSS. The band obviously believe in audience participation and above all else, having a good time, and they justify their surprisingly lofty perch on the bill with ease. Lovefoxx is as charming as ever with her three outfits and regular sojourns into the crowd. The climax is the now ubiquitous Let’s Make Love.. and Latitude nu-raves away deliriously.

Sometimes things just work perfectly at festivals, and I charge down the hill to catch the end of Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip’s headlining set on the Lake stage. I only see two songs, but they’re clearly on top of their game. The perfect pastiche of indiedom that is Thou Shalt Always Kill is tremendous live as is their new single, which closes their set.

The Good, The Bad & The Queen are not everyone’s idea of an ideal festival headliner. But there’s no denying the talent of Damon Albarn, the man with the Midas touch. Tonight GBQ are ethereal, haunting and simply marvellous. Their excellence is wasted on a bemused audience to be honest, who clearly don’t know or appreciate the songs. There are murmurings that Albarn should have played some Blur hits for the crowd, but this is a different band with a different sound. For a band to headline a festival to fifteen thousand people on the strength of one album is remarkable. However, Albarn is nothing if not a showman and he loves a challenge. Tonight his band are resplendent in top hats and clad all in black, even the string section. It all looks like something out of an old black-and-white film, and the music suits, transporting Latitude’s rolling Suffolk countryside to a London of old.

The day is rounded off superbly with a tentative trip to the Poetry tent to see some more of the talented Scroobius Pip. Daft name, amazing rhymes. Look up his poems, they are fantastic.