latitude 2008

THE BEEP SEALS open up a changeable Saturday, their cascades of ethereal keys and walking bass recreating the Teenage Fanclub echoes of their LP. Eccentric Englishmen, WILD BEASTS raise their choir vocals to the roof with ditties about decaying bodies in ‘His Grinning Skull’… it really is beautiful. Back to muddier ground, and TRUCKERS OF HUSK jazzercise their instrumentals, impressively harmonising through megaphones for ‘…Beat of My Heart’. A man who never gets old, SEASICK STEVE chittles away the early eve with his 3-string transwonder as if he’s the festival’s Don. In fine voice despite false-starting ‘New Born’, ELBOW lead the crowd through ‘One Day Like This’, Garvey becoming a preacher with his jubilant congregation. Having heard a bloke nearby utter the phrase “interesting soundscape,” we decide its time to follow the prog freak-out, as MARS VOLTA jam wildly funk-laced and colossally cover ‘Strychnine’ by The Sonics. Fortunately Sunday takes a soft start, with JOANNA NEWSOM forgetting some of her words with a sheepish apology to a hushed and appreciative coo. Those with their ears to the ground stampede and strain to catch a glimpse of LYKKE LI . She may be angelic, but the voice and attitude are getting ballsier as she abruptly exits following ‘Can I Kick It?’. At a crowd-bare Obelisk, THESE NEW PURITANS’ paranoid, iridescent drones during ‘Swords of Truth’ are too diffused in the open air. Meanwhile, fresh from some fisticuffs with Johnny Rotten, FOALS are sleep deprived; they play a set of controlled chaos allowing this exhausted hour to feel like the real future calling. To THE BREEDERS, and we find that Kim and Kelly Deal are typical siblings – one being respectable and well kempt, the other sporting un- brushed hair and cracking jokes about her mum’s Alzheimers. Still, if it influences a single as good as ‘Here No More’, you can hardly blame Kim for being witty about the ordeal. BLACK LIPS on a bill = debauchery, and within the first minute spit is flying up in the air and getting caught in the mouth again. Hooray (?) Meanwhile, INTERPOL loom like morbid rock moguls and play a set of draining intensity, proving Paul Banks to have the most doom-laden croon in the world atop. And with the encore ‘NYC’, the end of the festival is nigh. The sheep will turn back to white and the woods will be abandoned – but July 09 can’t come soon enough.