16 July 2011 (gig)
17 July 2011
Saturday proved to be a very early start as Never Mind the Buzzcocks was being performed live at the cruel time of 11.00 at the Comedy Arena. Arriving late owning to a general laziness, the packed arena saw a panel including Paloma Faith, Phil Jupitus and Noel Fielding put on a fantastic piece of entertainment which even included an I.D parade to find the man that replaced Preston (If you have no idea what this means, check this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHJgFJTEHLI).
Local boy Ed Sheeran had been bumped up onto main stage following an impressive performance last year, and he failed to disappoint in front of the main stage as his acoustic sound went down incredibly with the rain sodden fans.
With the rain persisting, another trip to the Comedy Arena was due, catching the end of a comedy/musical performance from the talented Doc Brown. His set highlights included his views on Mario Balotelli being the coolest man in the world and his nursery rhyme based rap he uses to sing his children to sleep. Jon Richardson, a team captain on 8 out of 10 cats followed after and delivered the finest set of the festival so far. Combining a mixture of stories and anecdotes ranging from muggings, loneliness and his own pessimistic views on life went down a storm, ironically mirroring the worsening weather outside.
Holly Walsh followed Jon Richardson after a brief interval and proved to be the worst act across all of the stages of Latitude. A mixture of random jokes without themes and ones surrounding the weird year she has had, Holly even managed to irk the crowd by stating she’d never use a festival toilet and went on to insult local landmarks in a idiotic way, rather than comedic. The best way to sum up her performance is that parts of the crowd chose to stand in the monsoon weather as it was more comfortable than Holly Walsh’s 30 minute set. An amazingly underwhelming performance from the former Mock the Week guest.
Seasick Steve through up one of the surprises of the festival during his set, as he unveiled his guest bassist to be none other than Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones. From then on Steve had the crowd in the palm of his hand as he ploughed through renditions of Its All Good & You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks. Steve even brought a girl on stage to seduce her with his track Walkin’ Man, before she disappeared backstage. For a man approaching his 70’s, Steve was still full of life and delivered yet another impressive performance before a live crowd.
The Cribs struggled to compete with Steve on some level, as nothing can really compete with the introduction of a musical legend like John Paul Jones. Once again a three piece act, The Cribs’ loudest cheers were still reserved for Mens Needs & I’m a Realist. Although they do look more comfortable as a three piece act, The Cribs will need to improve if they want to continue to add to their fan base.
Legendary scousers Echo and the Bunnymen played to a surprisingly small crowd in the word arena largely because of the sudden rise in popularity My Morning Jacket had experienced. Playing through the majority of their first album Crocodiles, Echo were a little disappointing as they failed to offer any real variation in their setlist. Still the band performance-wise was impressive, vocalist Ian Mculloch sounded spot on throughout so the band certainly deserves acclaim for not depreciating in quality over the years.
Paolo Nutini proved a popular choice for headliner as swarms of young teenagers gathered for his performance at the Obelisk stage. Chants of Paolo rang out half an hour before the Scot was even scheduled to appear, whilst parents of young children quickly headed towards the back of the crowd after seeing the sight of the rowdy, excited audience. Opening with Jenny Don’t Be Hasty, everything Paolo did seemed effortless as he glided through his two albums These Streets & Sunnyside Up. What casual listeners of Paolo may neglect to notice is the amount of variety the young man offers in his music, for instance his single Pencil Full of Lead infuses a mixture of Ska and Indie delightfully and the result sounded much stronger live than on his LP. Paolo even had time to debut a new track in the course of his 90 minute set, closing with his new song Sleep Walking. The loudest cheer of the night was reserved for his encore track Last Request, which Paolo let the audience sing the majority of. Although Paolo Nutini doesn’t quite offer the stage presence or confidence when interacting with the crowd, he certainly demonstrated that he is one to watch and outshone previous headliners The National a million times over.
