So here I am, nearly three weeks after we finally packed up our tents, and I’m still writing about the Latitude Festival. Haven’t quite grasped the concept of live blogging, have I?

Anyhow, we’ve now reached Day 4 or – as it was more commonly known back in those days – Sunday, 20th July 2008. It was the last day of the festival and, without hesitation, my undisputed highlight was seeing Grinderman perform at the Obelisk Arena. Grinderman, in case you don’t already know, is a band Nick Cave formed with erstwhile Bad Seeds Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey and Jim Sclavunos. They released an eponymous album last year and their raw and raucous guitar-based sound been compared in some quarters with Cave’s post-punk band The Birthday Party. Not in these quarters, mind: I think they sound more like the early-Bad Seeds. Other people in other quarters think that the early-Bad Seeds sound a lot like the late-Birthday Party, while other factions maintain that the early-Birthday Party sound a lot like the late-Boys Next Door. That’s just being awkward, though.

Whatever the case, I make no secret of my musical allegiances: I’m a huge Nick Cave fan and have been for many a year. I saw him play with his long-time cohorts The Bad Seeds as recently as May and wrote about it here. Elsewhere, I’ve said that he “kicks arse so hard it farts out of its nose.” Overall, then, I’m of the opinion that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are one of the greatest live rock-and-roll bands in the world. After seeing the Grinderman gig at Latitude, though, I feel as though they’re facing some stiff competition from themselves.

With menacing swagger and no shortage of humour, Cave captivated the crowd. He’s very good at crowd captivation. The band opened with Depth Charge Ethel and most of the set came from the Grinderman album, with the addition of a new song called Dream (“Like when you’re fucking asleep,” clarified Cave, before edging himself into a verbal cul-de-sac by misquoting Shakespeare: “To dream, perchance to… to… to… ah, fuck it.”).

Here they are. Watch them rock.

Other highlights of the day included:

14.00(-ish) Wordtheatre: The Affairs of Others. I caught this by chance and was captivated. David Soul – the artist formerly known as Hutch, Ben Mears and Jerry Springer – read the Tobias Wolff short story ‘Bullet in the Brain.’ Black as anthracite humour, powerfully delivered.

14.45 Frankie Boyle. Glaswegian panel show regular surprised me by being a lot funnier than I expected.

15.50 Noah & The Whale. They of the criminally catchy summer hit 5 Years Time. Clare wanted to see them; I’m glad I went.

16.30 Otis Lee Crenshaw. Wah-hey! More Rich Hall!

17.30 Stewart Lee. Sublime. A routine that consisted of riffs and meditations on a 1970s comedy album called ‘I’m a Comedian…. Seriously’ by Franklyn Ajaye (yes, I had to look him up, too) became a ruthless deconstruction of comedy technique. It shouldn’t have been anywhere near as pant-wettingly funny as it was. But it was.

18.35 Breeders. I saw them in April but, mercifully, this time around was spared the insane ramblings of a speed garage freak from Northampton. They were great, of course, but probably would have been better in the more intimate Uncut tent.

20.00 Grinderman. See above.

21.15(-ish) Blondie. More guilty pleasures. We caught them from a distance, but didn’t have a choice (and, yes, I meant to say ‘them’: as Clare pointed out at the time, Blondie is a band. People seem to forget that).

21.45 Tindersticks. I’ve never really listened to the Tindersticks, but they’ve often been mentioned in the same breath as bands I really like. Thought I’d give them a try; wish I didn’t.

At some point between the blistering Mars Volta set and the 2am Buzzcocks gig we stumbled off into the woods.  It seemed like the right thing to do.

Like pack-a-mac clad moths to a flame we were drawn to the gaudy disco lights of the Club de Fromage.  This, as the name suggests, was an open air Bacchanalian knees-up dedicated to synth-soaked, drum machine-drenched music of a Cheddary nature.  With its heavy rotation of retro floor-fillers, it put me in mind of one of those god-awful 80s theme bar chains like Reflex, yet managed to be nothing like them.   For one thing, we were surrounded by gorgeous woodland and – from my experience, at least – this tends to be in short supply at your average 80s theme bar. That’s not to say that  a conspicuous lack of dense foilage has ever prevented Reflex patrons from getting out of their trees.

Besides the verdant ambiance of the surroundings, Club De Fromage was also packed full of nice people having a good time.   From my experience, this also tends to be in short supply at your average city centre 80s theme bar.   I, for one, welcomed the noticeable lack of pinch-faced, dead-eyed, manic-aggressive, “Don’t-do-It-Mate, She’s-Not-Worth It” types.  Who knows?  Maybe they were knocking back the red sambucas and getting into fights over at the poetry tent…

As Dolly Parton belted out 9-to-5, I leaned against a neighbouring oak and tried to articulate these 80s theme bar observations to my neighbouring friends.  Unfortunately, fatigue was taking hold, my timing was off and nobody could hear me.

Clare, however, was on top form: “They should call it Treeflex,” she said.

Wish I’d thought of that.

Buzzcocks, in the wee small hours of 20th July (approx 3am, can’t be sure), courtesy of some YouTube and some good natured soul with a camcorder. Clare rather unkindly said that they looked like a pub darts team. I reckon they played like a force of nature.

Brother Younger and I were taking care of business in the mosh pit. It may be undignified, but it’s fun. If you see someone in the crowd jumping up and down in a mad pork pie hat it’s probably him.

On Latitude Saturday (otherwise known as 19th July), Sigur Rós were the headlines. They were good, but I don’t like them as much as I feel I ought too. There’s something about that finely-crafted, Icelandic, plinky-plonky minimalism that makes me feel as though I’ve stepped into a mobile phone commercial. I guess I can only take minimalism in small doses.

It was just after the Sigur Rós set that we encountered the Parachute Man. We were sitting on the field when some guy tripped over my foot, flew through the air and landed on a patch of grass nearby, face first. He remained motionless for quite some time and I was torn between genuine concern for his well-being and genuine concern for mine. He was wearing a rucksack, which led my brother to blurt out the line: “Maybe his parachute didn’t open.”

Eventually, he got up and stumbled off. He seemed confused; I felt relieved.

Other stuff I saw (or partially saw) that day included:

11.00 Marcus Brigstock’s Early Edition. Now Show regular Brigstock was on fine form. Like Newsnight’s review of the papers, but with dick jokes.
15.00 Bill Bailey. A similar set to lat year’s. Just as funny.
15.40 Captain. Breezy.
17.00 Jeremy Hardy. Reassuring.
18.15 Rich Hall. Genius. His Buckingham Palace anecdote and musings on the phrase “At the end of the day” made me laugh so hard I nearly burst my appendix.
19.30 Guillemots. I’m not convinced. Neither is Clare. We’ll leave it at that.
20.45 Mars Volta. Fucking awesome. They rock.
(?) Club de Fromage DJs. More late-night cheese.
02.05 Buzzcocks. A highlight of the weekend.

Stuff I missed (or wish I’d seen more of) include:Kategoes, Kabeedies, Seasick Steve & Mark Thomas.

Maybe next year…

Friday highlights included:

12.35 Robin Ince at the Comedy Arena. Very funny. Here he is at one of his Latitude Book Clubs, having an impromptu “Peel-Off” with Ross Noble:

15.00 Micah P. Hinson. Throaty Americana music. Good shit.
15.45 Bearsuit. Say it after me: “Jupiter FORCE! Jupiter FORCE!” Fucking awesome. More about them later.
20.00 Death Cab For Cutie. Clare’s a fan. I’m being won over. They were good.

Here you go, Clare:

21.30 Franz Ferdinand
(?) Guilty Pleasures: late night cheese. No wonder I couldn’t get to sleep.

Stuff I missed:

My old pal Nicky arrived on Friday so I helped her unpack, pitch her tent and lose her car. As a result I missed Ross Noble, British Sea Power and Julian Cope.

These things happen.

• 09.45 Emerge from sleeping bag.
• 10.20 Emerge from tent.
• 10.30 Make way from camping area to catch 12 .30pm recording of legendary Radio 4 panel game ‘Just a Minute‘.
• 10.45 Arrive at arena. Wake up.
• 10.50 Discover the Just a Minute queue is already about sixty-three miles long. The irony is not lost on me.
• 10.52 Reluctantly join queue. Have never seen so many Radio 4 listeners in one place. Am reminded about those movie legends about The Wizard of Oz: during filming, the Munchkin actors were said to be so overwhelmed by the unprecedented availability of like-sized people they lost all inhibitions and indulged in lust-fuelled, gin-soaked orgies and “dwarf sex parties”. Remind myself that these are Radio 4 listeners: if they lose their inhibitions they’ll probably indulge themselves in a slightly-loopy, slightly-tipsy, letter-writing binge and hit the coconut macaroons like there’s no tomorrow.
• 10.52 Remind myself that I, too, am a Radio 4 listener.
• 11.00 Starting to get restless. I didn’t come all the way to Suffolk to queue in a field. Maybe I should contact You and Yours?
• 11.05 Clare, Brother Younger and Chris arrive. They can’t believe I’ve come all the way to Suffolk to queue in a field. so I can watch a radio show. I can’t believe I’m trying to justify myself.
• 11.15 Chris finds out that all the Just a Minute tickets have gone. Understandably enough, the queue is heard to grumble. This is done without repetition, deviation or hesitation.

Clare and I arrive at the campsite early in the evening. Brother Younger and his pal Chris have already arrived and set up the tents so we inflate the inflatable beds. To me, this seems like a reasonably civilised and mutually beneficial division of tasks, but Brother Younger thinks otherwise. This will become a recurring theme over the weekend: experience has taught me that when Brother Younger thinks, he invariably thinks otherwise.

10.15pm In the arena now, sitting on the grass with Clare and drinking cider. We’ve already lost Brother Younger and Chris. In the distance, there’s a full orchestra providing a live soundtrack to E.A. Dupont’s 1928 silent film Moulin Rouge. After the festival we’ll be off to Paris and staying in Montmartre, so the choice of film seems like a good omen.

After a few more ciders, it stops being a good omen and evolves into a fully resonant symbol. Getting pissed in a field while an orchestra plays a live soundtrack to a silent movie – doesn’t that simple image capture the very essence of the Latitude Festival? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Isn’t that why we’re here?

Oh, there’s Rob & Chris. “Hi Rob & Chris!”

I share my observations with Brother Younger. He thinks otherwise.

5am Go to bed. Less said the better.