Latitude Festival: Suffolk

Reading, Leeds, Wireless, V, Global Gathering, Bestival, Lost Vagueness, Hi-Fi, T In The Park, The Glade… The number of music festivals on offer in the UK is growing every year and 2006 has seen several major new additions. Adorned with the livery of mobile phone companies and major brewers, large scale, outdoor events are morphing into the mainstream.

Yet despite the number of events on offer, the ‘products’ have remained bleakly homogenous. The evolutionary magic of Glastonbury aside, festivals have been distilled to their bare essentials – a big open space, a mix of indie bands and big name bankers and a raft of major sponsors. A quick back-of-beer-mat calculation suggests that, at a conservative estimate, the UK’s music festival capacity (and this excludes genres outside of rock and dance), this year must be approaching a million. With every man and his 3G dog trying to cash in, the festivals industry, infant that it is, has become predictable and almost entirely devoid of soul or innovation.

Within this context, the news that Mean Fiddler was launching yet another major event - Latitude, on the Suffolk coast - had to be treated with some scepticism. A quick glance at the line-up suggested familiar furrows were being ploughed, though in peculiar directions. Snow Patrol, The Zutons and Stephen Fretwell were predictable fare, but Mogwai and Patti Smith seemed to be targeted at two almost diametrically opposed audiences. And here therein lay the twist, the flick of the wrist, the magic ingredient that has seen Mean Fiddler rewrite the festival rule book with a subtlety and finesse that other events have lacked.

Latitude attempted to blend literature, theatre, comedy, cabaret, poetry and art with a bands line up that somehow embraced the new and the dependable at the same time, without making a mockery of either. The resulting audience mix generated an atmosphere that you’d normally expect to take thirty years of slow growth, word of mouth support and a dash of legend.

The weather undoubtedly did the organisers no harm - a cool breeze was the most festival-goers had to complain about. And the setting – a country park near Southwold on the Suffolk coast – was a spectacular success – a natural bowl framing the main stages, with a long, narrow lake and strip of woodland separating the campsite and the live acts. But even here, the organisers had used and embellished the surroundings to great effect, from painted sheep to the release of coloured lanterns onto the lake.

Whether or not the cultural combination worked remains to be seen – the founding principle of such an event is that not everything will be to everyone’s tastes. Or to put it another way, New Noise stuck to its guns and for the most part attended the music stages. Even so, glimpses of Howard Marks and a raft of less famous but equally invigorating authors and comics proved that, whilst our expertise may be limited, those in charge of booking the artists showed knowledge and flair to get the list just right.

Those attending the event ranged from families to groups of twenty-somethings. The indie kids – the real ones, that aren’t really old enough to drink – were absent, but so was the vicious edge that comes with many festivals (with the exception of the bloke that head butted my nose, but I probably had that coming). The end result was one of unexpected synergies, with complimentary acts springing from apparent contradictions. Hats off to Mean Fiddler, then, for taking a risk and producing something finally deserving of the hard earned cash of the music thirsty. With poems.