... was great, best comedy act I saw on the weekend

This may be a highlight of my life to date...

rich hall and frankie boyle were fantastic, as were elbow, sigur ros, murder by death, blondie, grammatics and exploits of elaine. plus one of the irrepresebles songs was the most beautiful piece of music ive ever heard.
didnt make the DiS meet, passed out around 5:30pm on Friday and when i awoke it was 12:15 and raining. wonion.

That was WOW.

The marching band coming on, the whole of hoppipolla, and the explosions of confetti during gobbledigook are things I will never forget. Truly stunning.

Pretty much everything musical on Sunday seemed pointless after that....except Blondie's fantastic performance (ignoring Debbie Harry's attempt at dancing)

while leaning against the fence at the side of the main stage and then seasick steve wandered out of nowhere and sat down against the fence about 10 feet away from me. I would have said something to him but i've already met the guy before and he looked pretty tired. He still had quite a few people go and say hello to him though.

Rich Hall was the only comedy act I bothered to see because that tent is stupidly still far too small (what happened to them apparently making it bigger this year) and he was funny as hell. That whole audience love arc thing he had going on was great.

Sigur Ros, Okkervil River, Interpol, Broken Records, Slow Club - all pretty amazing

anyone?

i'm so tired now...

highlights:

ross sutherland (poet)
Arnab Chanda (comedian)
disco shed
the aliens
yacht
thomas tantrum
breeders
black lips
okkervil river
interpol

annoyances:

kids during volta. fucking idiots.
tellier's v.short set.

best thing ever:

jack getting yannis to do a shout out for me during foals. fucking awesome.

Okkervil river were also very good.
Glasvegas were very disappointing and seemed totally tuneless.
Beggars were brilliant and they are probably the sexiest band ever.

the irrepresibles? 'In This Shirt' was the highlight of my festival, and maybe any festival ever. walking past at random to see them playing on the lake, i nearly teared up. the recorded version doesnt really do it justice, but still:
http://www.myspace.com/theirrepressibles

Sigur Ros
Rich Hall / Otis Crenshaw
Blondie
Errors
Howling Bells
Elbow
Disco Shed
Joanna Newsom
Lykke Li
Tim & Sam

Pretty awesome all round. Met some lovely people and had a grand time.

or did TMV not play a single track from their first LP? WTF?

Sigur Ros were definitely my highlight. I'd never heard them before, they were on after Elbow so I thought I'd just hang around and listen for a few songs but my friend and I were transfixed. Can anyone tell me what the first song was? Loved it. The whole thing was just magical, and the confetti at the end, the marching band...awesome.

Blondie were awesome, nice to see Okkervil River and Elbow, and I thought Nada Surf were great - maybe not the most exciting, original musical highlight but I thought it was just good, unpretentious, enjoyable music played by some pretty nice guys. And they played Inside Of Love, which was pretty ace.

Franz Ferdinand were pretty meh, the friend I was with is a huge fan so we went, but I found them really pretty unexciting. I heard lots of people after saying they weren't impressed either.

I found quite a lot of the smaller bands kind of disappointing. I know there were some great ones, but there just seemed to be such a multitude of cut-copy indie twee cutesy boy-girl duos and the like...didn't do a lot for me.

Non-musical: LUKE WRIGHT. Every morning in the poetry tent. I was absolutely blown away. He was...incredible, really, such amazing poetry and performance. Usually I hate hearing people read their own poetry aloud, but he was something else. Anyone else catch him?

Tim Minchin was the comedy highlight, the ginger song was fantastic. Bill Bailey was a bit shite though.

Great weekend generally :D

So much fun, easily one of the best UK festival.

Highlights for me were:

Interpol
Blondie
Johnny Flynn
White Lies

Paul Hawkins walking up the main stage field, whilst chatting to Alex in ciderland (dis namedropping), and then catching Pauls set at the Lake Stage.

but not as awful as their fans. Getting stuck near the front for that was a terrifying experience.

1. Interpol [by a clear margin; it was the best I've ever seen them, the setlist was near-perfect and the crowd were very enthusiastic without ever becoming aggressive. Excellent.]
2. Sigur Ros
3. Grinderman
4. Seasick Steve
5. Wild Beasts

Okkervil River, Twilight Sad, Stewart Lee, Death Cab, BSP, Dave Gorman, Johnny Foreigner, Jeremy Hardy, Joanna Newsom, Seasick Steve, Clinic, Sebastian Tellier, Early Edition, Noah & the Whale, and Robin Ince and Ross Noble's John Peel impressions last night.

Pretty excellent really

my fave band of the weekend... Joanna would have had it if she hadn't forgotten the words to S&D.

other highlights:

Broken Records
Jon Richardson (comedy)
improvised theater thing (hilarious)
Okkervil River (always love them live)
THE WAVE PICTURES (hurrah for the nicest band ever)
Errors
4 hours in the comedy tent on saturday
Franz Ferdinand were good fun
The Twilight Sad were fab

Shit stuff:

rain
rain
rain
Tim Minchin (fucking annoying comedy song guy who was in the middle of my 4 hr comedy marathon, idiot audience loved him for some reason)

back on the plastic cup deposit at the end of the festival? I had a right arse of a man giving me stick for asking for a few quid back for my cups, then he handed me a load of 20p coins, shortchanging me in the process. Twat

On a brighter note - great mix of acts, top festival.
Enjoyed seeing Irvine Welsh on first night, Grinderman my highlight on Sunday. Did some dancing to Mars Volta's noodling Saturday night.

On other notes - Julian Cope set was a shitfest, full of grumpy old men; Cope came on much later than billed and had his stage wrapped in a sheet until all the band were there...for what reason exactly? He got all dad-rock after a few decent tracks so I left, but apparently they pulled the plug on him - this true/false?

Anyone else notice that the audience were most often not for dancing?

has the marching of a brass band brought me to tears. They were absolutely, mind-alteringly immense. Oof.

Did anybody else catch The Little Ones? I've never seen a band look that happy whilst on stage, it was ace.
And Johnny Foreigner were highlights for me, as were Joanna Newsom, Johnny Flynn, Noah and the Whale and Those Dancing Days!
Who else participated in Ross Noble's fairly shambolic, but nevertheless hilariously epic conga line?

Oh, and did anybody else catch Dave Gorman last night? Had to sacrifice a few moments of Interpol for it, but he was well worth it.

highlights:

death cab after the sound problems cleared up
elbow
YACHT
malcolm middleton
the sunrise stage in general
catching the impromtu performance of Hamlet in the woods
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON
early edition in general
cheese crepes
pink sheep
johnny foreigner
the bit at the start of Cranes & Cranes & Cranes & Cranes & Cranes & Cranes & Cranes when the audience sang the intro and alexei looked like he was about to explode with joy
apatt
bearsuit
jonquil
getting bored of the foals and wandering over to the lake stage to see what was happening, only for huw stephens to announce that elle s'appelle had cancelled and that paul hawkins & thee awkward silences would be replacing them
grinderman
grinderman
nick cave and grinderman
the toilets not being vile for most of the weekend
the Grey Man Goes To Latitude artwork in the woods
OKKERVIL RIVER despite the crowd being horrible where i was

i really enjoyed myself thnx

were a bit rubbish, especially after all the hyping from YOU LOT (yes, you). Just seemed like a bad Los Campesinos (no hooks).

Rich Hall was excellent, as were several other comedians I'd never heard of before. Frankie Boyle was funny, though I was disappointed in how much of own material he'd already used on Mock the Week, just seemed a bit lazy really.

Interpol are a very boring, soul-less band.

Franz Ferdinand were enjoyable, though hardly spectacular.

The Breeders managed to come across as not being able to play their instruments properly, yet were charming and fun to watch.

Toilets weren't too bad.

I thought the sound quality on pretty much all the stages was very very good, only a few technical problems, so kudos to the sound engineers.

There was some excellent poetry, especially one piece about a shit home decorator who used to be a geography teacher. That was not something I was expecting to hear.

Okkervil River...the first half of their set was tedious, just seemed incredibly generic and boring indie, though it improved towards the end.

I thought Foals were good, though Yannis did sound rather tired (understandably so).

i fear we may have fallen into the 'twee boy girl duos' category...

Lykke Li

sigur ros (capped the festival for me, i wasn't a huge fan before but it was just perfect)
elbow
broken records
jonquil
blondie
truckers of husk

thought interpol were a bit flat, it all felt a little phoned in. joanna newsom was great in parts, but it was a bit of a messy set generally and her new material on the piano was pretty forgettable.

The Good Bits:
Dancing to Crystal Castles outside the Sunrise tent when high.
Silly dancing to Franz Ferdinand.
Sitting outside Guilty Pleasures in a camping chair playing an inflatable guitar.
Nice people returning my property that was stolen.
Touching Cedric from the Mars Volta.
Paul Hawkins and the Awful Silences being really good and making up for not seeing Elle S’appelle.
Interpol!

The Bad Bits:
The scum who slashed my tent and stole all my cash/ phone/ train tickets as I slept on Thursday night.
Unpredictable random weather.
2 hour wait for the shuttle bus back to Ipswich, missing my train and having to spent £30 on another ticket.
It all went too quickly.

Will go again next year though.

the 'compost toilets' by In The Woods stage, made Latitude by far the best fest I've ever been to... and then add Joanna Newsom, Blondie, Sigur Ros and Crystal Castles to the mix + pink sheep and a field dedicated to Pimm's (just about), mental. Everyone was genuinely lovely and NO bollocks chanting from where we were camped. So good.

LOVE LOVE LOVED it, even the wristbands are nice :]

Johnny Foreigner on fine form and as ever looking as though they were having the time of their lives. Made a change from the raft of identikit art school bands ('What's you favourite number? What does it mean? etc etc etc etc).

Seasick Steve was everything I'd hoped he'd be, a total entertainer, I enjoyed the anecdotes as much as the songs themselves.

D-Cab were pretty good, Interpol were pretty much note perfect.

Sigur Ros were excellent, but I wasn't really in a sufficiently transcendental ambient mood to fully enjoy their sonic stylings.

Who else? The Breeders slayed, good to see Kelley and Kim still having so much fun and naturally, Cannonball got the audience reaction of the weekend.

Joanna Newsome was sublime, the occasional forgotten lyrics only endeared her to me more.

Honourable mentions to Fields, dEUS and Polly Scattergood (MASSIVE next year? If there's any justice)...oh, also Rosie and the Goldbugs were a band I'd never previously heard of, but the singer (that'd be Rosie then) had the best voice I've ever heard in my life, even her normal speaking voice was like honey, it didn't hurt that she was beautiful either.

Other stuff:

Hanging out with codswallop, guntrip, lofisongsaregreat, wireless_enthusiast, bundoz and marshwarbler for much of the weekend plus the DiS meat which after some confusion as to precisely which tree was being referred to got under way, present were a selection of the above plus tennesseelamb71, jook, danger, testicles, scrotum, jameslutley, freshspringroll and I think that's it....apologies to any I may have forgotten, but I was pretty 'refreshed' by this point in time.
It was a seminal moment in the history of DiS/Latitude and internet/3D world interaction anyway.

Also:

'In the Woods', the Pimm's bus, the tug-of-war contest complete with posh compere, Bill Bailey, Milton Jones, Jeremy Hardy, Ross Noble's million and one sets in various tents throughout the course of the weekend, the Disco Shed and it's by now cultlike following, fine vegetarian food galore, BBQs in the campsite, lovely people with an absolute minimum level of Reading/Leeds style cunts and what was in general just the most aesthetically pleasing festival imaginable all combined to make it the best festival I have ever experienced......sort of the ethos of Truck combined with the setting/artistic
vibe of Secret Garden Party, but all underwritten by the financial clout/organisational prowess of Festival Republic. Killer, killer, killer loved it!

The one downside was the astonishingly high rate of tent thefts which is something that I just didn't expect at all. Our tent got raided at least twice as did most of those around us. We didn't get anything taken, but it still isn't very nice and just seemed totally strange at such a nice event. I am still frankly bedazzled at the tendency for some people to keep money in their tents though, to the people who had 200 quid taken...I feel bad for you, but you must be MENTAL.

Oh, finally to DiS user testicles' friend (and ocassional DiSer) 'Terry' (or Teri/Terri...some variation, sorry I don't know!) who was reportedly 'star struck', it was just the sweetest (and most baffling) thing ever! :D

I'm going to a greasy spoon for the full English to end them all now.

Peace out.

Alex x

Joanna Newsom (slip-ups or not), Elbow, Sigur Ros - these are easily my top three. I fell in love with Jo all over again, and Guy Garvey's voice literally broke my soul during Crane Driver. I was swaying alongside him, and yeah, I am so FUCKING glad I saw them at last.

Death Cab were good, as were Interpol.

Murder By Death marred by bad sound but otherwise rocking. Twilight Sad loud, however good. Wild Beasts fucking tits-out awesome.

Only regrets having watched the whole of a Grinderman set, the double-schedule of the Volta with Sigur, and no visits to the smaller lit/etc tents this year. Also not being un-stoned for more than an hour all weekend.

i totally wish i'd made it along to the DiS meetup on friday night. i stayed up drinking with alex until about 4am on thursday night and then spent an hour walking around the campsite in a drunken haze trying to find my tent and i was totally destroyed on friday as a result. sadface :(

who saw Johnny Foreigner over the Go! Team is unbelievable.

the cow tent in the camp site?

that was awesome

That is all.

...were my surprise of the weekend, as I thought Ida Maria was on. They were excellent, although they did remind me a LOT of Beirut, I don't think you can really have too much of that kind of thing.

The piano. George Pringle (the most 'punk' performance I saw all weekend). Malcolm Middleton. Jonquil (although they have a couple of TERRIBLE TERRIBLE tracks they need to jettison). Errors. The Wave Pictures. Sigur Ros (best first half of a gig, ever, possibly). Oh, and I saw Pinback and Phosphorescent earlier that week. That doesn't count, but they were great too. Programs were dead cheap aye, giving them away almost.