Latitude Thoughts : all 80s special

There was a noticeable skew to more mature fare at this year's Latitude, possibly to ward off the criminal elements that cast a shadow over the 2010 edition.
And this was somewhat underlined by booking Adam Ant and OMD.
Me, I am just too young to remember these acts the first time round. Sometimes this can feel like you're intruding on a private party.
Which was emphatically not the case with either act.
Firstly, we will touch on OMD. For their first UK festival show in 25 years, they were clearly moved by the crowd's love. And wonderfully self-deprecating. Brilliant versions of their classics and bravely opening with uber-hit Enola Gay, which had the crowds racing in.
Next: Prince Charming. Adam Ant clearly relished being back. His energy was infectious and this was the biggest crowd we saw in the tent all festival long (though 'twere lunchtime and wet).
My personal theory is that without Adam Ant we wouldn't have had a Jarvis. Here was a man standing up for the geeks, the outcasts. Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
And given what the papers have said about his mental health, there is an extra poignancy.
Now, having seemingly emerged victorious, he is a hero twice over. Bless you Adam Ant.

Latitude Thoughts : They Might Be Giants

On these shores They Might Be Giants (TMBG) are kinda thought of as one-hit wonders due to the mega-success of Birdhouse In Your Soul (possibly one of the best songs by anyone in the 90s).
Despite the worst rain of the festival punctuating their set, TMBG showed why they're so much more than that.
They are one of the funniest live acts I've seen of any genre.
The set started with a song dedicated to an "absent friend", the sun.
And after a bravely early airing of Birdhouse we were introduced to the awesomely crazy edutainment tunes including the Alphabet of Nations which is simple in concept but wonderfully entertaining even in midsummer downpours.
Also as well as the best ever song about city nomenclature there was a duet by sock puppets claiming to be Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks and nobody else at Latitude came anywhere close to that level of crazy (and this includes KT Tunstall having an interpretative dancer providing sign language).
There was a real warmth and humour to their banter. So much so I found myself drifting into a lovely little NYC fantasy in which we would all meet up at Casa TMBG's local pizzeria, get involved in Seinfeld-ian escapades and then together with Spidey writer Dan Slott we would go watch some off-Broadway gem.
Which is an odd way of saying to hear these guys is to fall ever so slightly in love with them even in bad weather.

Latitude thoughts : The Vaccines

The caravan has been doing its' summer tour of festivals and general awesomeness.
To catch up, we'll do a few posts on acts wot caught our eyes.

So, The Vaccines.
I have a slightly complicated relationship with these guys as I ADORED Jay Jay Pistolet (frontman Justin Young's previous venture).  Jay Jay Pistolet is very folksy and the tunes are stunning in a nu-folk Noah and The Whale or Johnny Flynn way.
The music's thoughtful but not navel-gazing.
And, well, The Vaccines are closer to The Strokes (or actually The Ramones). Listen to this - it's great but utterly unrecognisable from the Pistolet material.
Which means Justin Young's a very talented man (even if I don't care for the ubiquitous Post Break-up Sex).

Live, though, they won me over.
There was incredible excitement in the audience (the most we'd seen at a fairly laidback and wet Latitude).
And an understated cockiness to the band (it's like they think "Yeah, we're awesome, we don't have to prove anything") but not a laziness. The tunes back this up.
For the next week, we woke up with The Vaccines providing our internal soundtrack.
Which isn't bad seeing we saw them on the first day of a three day festival.

Mass Effect

Last week I finished the first Mass Effect.
It was brilliantly absorbing, strong plot, well paced.

There was one thing that bugged me. The side-missions would often take you to research labs on planets and they were all kinda samey.
I thought it was slightly lazy design but understandable given the scale of the game.
Until I was finding myself walking down the stairs at Bank tube station. In the staircase there are at least five separate sections, all clearly numbered and assembled in some kind of train station Ikea style.

And I thought maybe those identikit research stations on Mass Effect aren't as unrealistic as all that.

Eden sessions : Flaming Lips

The Eden project is a wonderful place.
Biodomes containing tropical rainforests. Statues made out of recycled waste. Giant bees.
All very trippy and very fitting for Wayne Coyne et al.
In fact this is probably the best marriage of performer and venue.
And Coyne certainly seemed to agree.
Yeah, the Lips didn't play all of their wellknown songs. No "The Test" or "Waiting for a Superman".
But I really didn't care.
It was the first time I'd seen them and as first support act OK Go had warned, my brain burst out of its brain socket.
We managed to find ourselves against the barrier and, erm, I did kind of get carried away with punching giant balloons back into the crowd.
All the dancing  Dorothys were excited, as were the security guards, one of whom was giddily talking about what was to happen.
Also, most crucially, the Lips were so thrilled to be there. Wayne Coyne had clearly fallen for the place (and rightly so because Eden is magical and inspiring).

This was an absolute coup for the Eden project. I remember being a teenager in Plymouth and, INXS and Oasis aside, we didn't get big acts. In 1997 the biggest was The Lighthouse Family and, well, that's wrong and a quick Google suggests things haven't changed too much.
So I felt a bit sad for the region's indie kids that Morrisey was making his Plymouth debut that night.

A brief bit on the supports. We saw a surprise (to us) appearance by Badly Drawn Boy (saw but didn't hear as his sound check took forever and OK Go were about to go onto the main stage). One of the nice things about the sessions is that even Eden visitors without concert tickets can watch the performances that aren't on the main stage (and there were a lot of acts on the two non-main stages), as it acted as tasters for not only the acts concerned but also the sessions as a whole.
And OK Go were fantastic. I'd loved their videos (if unfamiliar, try this, this and this and we'll see you when emerge from your YouTube black hole) and I wondered how they were going to be live.
Their version of White Knuckles was brilliant and the handbell edition of Return is stunning, both moving and entertaining.

All told, it was a fantastic evening.
And you MUST see this image of Wayne and the bubble and the bubbles