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Fringe 2010 Blog - 8Latitude Day 3 - Saturday 17 July 2010Allow me to take you on a momentary flight of fancy back to the 1960s, when music festivals as we know them today started becoming popular. Imagine, if you will, that you are the manager of a popular rock band of the day. Let's give them a name - The Mushroomheads. In those days of course, a prerequisite of working in the music management business was that you had to always wear a flat cap and have a solidly British name like Brian or George or Terry. Now imagine you're backstage at some seedy, claustrophobic, fire hazard friendly club in Manchester or Liverpool or the like. The Mushroomheads are busy tearing up the stage with their drug-induced mixture of random guitar chords and dangerous-sounding but still quite PC lyrics. You stand to the side of the stage watching the crowd go wild. A hand taps you on the shoulder.
Now I ask you, as a manager of a successful rock band, would you agree to play in a field in the middle of Cowpatland for a bunch of hippies in sarongs? Unsurprisingly, a large number of bands said no... at first. Even the now legendary Woodstock had trouble attracting any talent until Creedence Clearwater Revival had signed on. My point is, festivals, or the idea of them, is rather bizarre. It is also rather brilliant. The popularity of such festivals is obvious. They are also money-making machines. A quick Wikipedia search will reveal that the UK alone hosts over 200 annual music festivals. Why? Because there is nothing quite like a music festival. On what other occasion could you spend a weekend immersed in music, watching all your favourite bands and discovering new favourite bands along with 50,000 other like-minded individuals? Small wonder then, that such festivals have multiplied by the dozens in recent years. Latitude `Festival is one of these newbies. An infant compared to other festivals, it is only 5 years old. It fills a niche as an alternative boutique festival, specialising in cross-genre artistes with a strong theatre, comedy and literary presence of acts on the bill. It presents itself as a quirky, family-friendly, artistic, Sunday in the park-style festival, all of which it does to perfection. It should do so too, given the previous experience that the festival organisers have. In today's age of huge multi-million firms taking over everything, nothing is rock and roll any more, not even music festivals. Latitude is owned and run by Festival Republic, who also own or run Reading and Leeds Festivals, The Big Chill festival, Electric Picnic and even Glastonbury. Yes, even that bastion of hippie freedom and anti-establishment is now owned by The Man. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Not that I wish to take anything away from Latitude. Let me say right here that I absolutely loved it. Every last bit of it (yes even the toilets about which much more anon). I'm aware that it is a rather 'tame' festival compared to some of the others, but it was excellent nonetheless. It was, in every way possible, a feast for the senses. Everywhere you turned, your senses were inundated with new information, all of it exciting and intriguing. All major decisions in your daily timetable consisted of deciding to watch one amazing act or another equally fantastic show. I'm not only talking about the music here - truth be told, I didn't really care for any of the headlining acts - I'm talking about all the other stuff there is to do. The RSC had a show in the Theatre Tent, comedy greats from all over the world did shows in the Comedy Tent, the West End cast of Hair performed extracts from the show on the stage by the lake...there's literally too much to see. You could conceivably spend an entire weekend enjoying everything the festival has to offer and not watch a single band or musician. There's so much to do and experience that you literally forget to eat. Latitude may be owned by The Man, but boy does he know how to create a good festival. Day 3 dawned bright and sunny. After a good night's sleep (I use the word 'good' rather loosely here) I woke up early and ready to face the first full day of the festival proper. My first stop was the coffee tent. Already there was quite a queue. It was well worth the wait however. One of the perks of being Maltese (as I am) is that hardly anyone in the world speaks the Maltese language outside of the Maltese islands. This has proved to be an endless source of amusement for me in the past and continues to do so today. I'll explain how. A pretty, petite girl took my order. She seemed to be rather timid and shy, two qualities which I thought are not usual of someone working at a festival. I then noticed a massive tattoo going down her arm. I'm not sure what it was, but the main subject matter appeared to be a series of skulls with daggers going through them. It looked completely out of place on her body, but was also quite beautiful and satisfied my festival coffee seller appearance requirements very well. I was asked to give a name. This is where the Maltese language comes in. Instead of a name, I always tell them a rude Maltese word which they dutifully write down on the coffee cup. It's not much but amuses me and never fails to bring a furtive smile to my face when they inevitably attempt to call out the word/name a few minutes later when my coffee is ready to be collected. In this case, the coffee making guy, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Quentin Tarantino, got the pronunciation pretty much spot on and as a result had, unknowingly, just yelled out a mild swear word in Maltese. Coffee in hand, I hurried over to the Literary Salon for a Raindance workshop on making a film with a zero budget. Raindance is film festival in London. Having written a script of my own which I am currently trying to sell, I was eager to find out how I could possibly produce it myself. My coffee stop had taken longer than anticipated and so I arrived late, bursting through the tent flaps (why does that sound so rude?) sweating and out of breath. There was nobody there. It was empty. I checked the timetable. I was in the right place. Yet there was no one around. At length, I asked a festival information person and was told to wait a little more. Eventually, two men and a woman walked in and introduced themselves as the Raindance people. I was the only person to show up and in spite of my feeble offers to let them abandon the workshop (it's not like there was nothing else going on - Phil Jupitus was appearing in the comedy tent at the same time) they insisted on forging ahead with the workshop just for me. I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but I can't begin to tell you the pressure that's put upon you when you're the only attendant at a workshop. Firstly there's that faint but lingering feeling that you're the only sucker out of the entire population of the festival (some 35,000 people) with nothing better to do than attend a workshop at 10.30am. Secondly, the focus is all and entirely on you. I sat there on a ridiculously low sofa, facing the two men from Raindance fielding questions like "How many films have you directed?" (none). "How many films have you written that have been produced?" (again, none). "Have you ever attended a film festival?" (uh, no). Eventually, with withering looks of pity on their faces, the questions ended up in the region of "Do you even know what Raindance is?" All I had wanted to do was sit quietly on the side and perhaps gain a few ideas from the discussion, a few pointers on what course of action one might take when producing his own film. Instead, I had found the Spanish Inquisition, and as everyone knows, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Thankfully, a few other people showed up some 20 minutes later and the pressure on me lifted somewhat and I was able to slip out of the tent unnoticed and run off to catch the last few minutes of the Phil Jupitus and friends improv show. It was a little hit and miss at times, and the finale was distinctly underwhelming, but all in all it seemed to be an excellent show, particularly when they struck comedy gold after they discovered a 16 year old girl in the audience whose birthday it was and who, in a moment of pressure, claimed that her favourite drink was diet vodka and coke! I stayed on in the comedy tent to see Craig Campbell, a Canadian comedian. I sometimes feel little sorry for Canadians. Poor things, they tend to be overlooked somewhat in the scheme of world events. I mean, who amongst us can name the current Canadian Prime Minister? Or any Canadian Prime Minister for that matter? They also have a bit of an identity crisis because everyone thinks they're American (they're sandwiched between America and Alaska - an American state), the Queen of England is officially their monarch, and a large portion of their population speaks French, wears berets and has names like Luc. Their main claims to fame are Cirque du Soleil, Celine Dion and moose. So yes, I stayed on to support the Canadian comedian. He was excellent and his disturbingly graphic demonstration of moose-human interbreeding (to use a more polite turn of phrase than he did) is something I shall remember for the rest of my life, and not because I particularly want to. Leaving the Canadian's pelvic thrusts and moose howls to the rest of the people packed into the Comedy Tent, I ran back to our campsite to meet the rest of the Fair Trade team in preparation for our first performance of the show - both at Latitude and ever. We quickly made our way to a fenced off compound at the back of the Theatre Tent, where we found a small collection of other tents and pre-fab rooms (of the type found in building sites) which turned out to be the performers' dressing rooms and production offices. In a very strange way, even though we were miles from anywhere, in the middle of a field wearing wellies, the setup was way more luxurious than one would find in any mid-scale London theatre. The changing room was clean and comfortable. It even had a fridge with complimentary beers, soft drinks and water. Free stuff! Like I said, luxury. We quickly got into our costumes, then gathered for a word from Lotte, our director, before waiting to be told that we could begin our get-in to the Theatre Tent (get-in means building the set, setting up equipment and the like. Get-out is the opposite). When the word came, we dashed inside and quickly set about doing the jobs we had been pre-assigned by Tess, our Stage Manager. It all went pretty smoothly and before I knew it, the show had begun. It wasn't the best of performances. It wasn't bad, but not the best. It was our first time performing on that particular stage, hell it was out first time performing the show to a proper audience! Also the venue was very large for the kind of show it is and loud music from nearby music stages kept leaking into the tent to give the rather heavy subject matter of the play a curiously upbeat underscoring. On top of that, technical problems prevented any of the instruments (except, ironically, mine) from being heard. Still, the audience seemed moved and their applause at the end genuine. After a quick get-out, it was time to head to the Word Arena to see The Feeling. The Word Arena would prove to be a constant source of confusion for me over the coming days. Its name derives from the sponsors of the arena, Word Magazine, and not because the performers appearing in that arena had anything to do with the spoken word. The Word Arena featured only bands and singers, no words just songs. And so, we hurried to the Word Arena to catch the second half of the set played by The Feeling. I do love that band. They're so upbeat and singalong-able. There was a terrific atmosphere inside the tent and the whole thing was very enjoyable. Then a quick bite to eat and some time to relax. It was at this point that I made the mistake of checking my emails. Don't ask me why, I wasn't expecting to find anything particularly important in my inbox, but I checked it anyway. I found two emails which altered my mood completely. The first concerned my aforementioned script. I had sent it to a friend who works in the business and his feedback, whilst not negative, wasn't as wonderful as I'd hoped it would be. The second, and more dispiriting email, was in reply to an application I had made for funding for an exciting project I'm working on. The reply was in the negative, and the reason given was rather rubbish. It effectively set months of work already done back by at least a few more months. In an instant, my festival enjoyment vanished. My mood spiralled downwards into a pit of darkness and despair. I sat in my tent and sulked, hating the world for its unfairness and lack of foresight to recognise my genius. At length, I picked myself up and wandered aimlessly across the festival site until I found myself by the lake, opposite the Latitude sign and multi-coloured sheep. I sank down heavily into a deck chair, lost in my own world of black thoughts. I called my wife and raged on for goodness knows how long whilst she patiently listened and replied with cool, calming words of rationality. It didn't work. I was still angry and nothing could make me feel better. Everything seemed to be rubbish. Even the sheep looked stupid in their bright colours. Then I discovered Jarmean. I was sitting, stewing in my deck chair when I suddenly heard music coming from somewhere across the lake. It sounded awesome. Faint, drifting in and out of earshot with the wind, it was a short while before I noticed it, but when I did, it made my ears pick up, like a dog's. Slowly, carefully so as not lose my concentration on it, I stood up and began to walk in the direction of the music. I crossed the bridge over the lake and then plunged into the woods on the other side, like a bloodhound on a trail. As I entered the woods, the music grew louder and louder until I could make out a small group of people gathered under some twinkling lights. I surged ahead, hoping, praying that this music was being played live and not just some recording. I soon stumbled into a small clearing to find myself in someone's living room. Well, it certainly looked like someone's living room. It was like a film set, three walls and an open fourth. The walls were made of wood and decorated with wall paper. There was a fireplace with ornaments, picture frames on the walls, lamps with lampshades and sofas. A grandfather clock was painted on the wall in a corner of the room. At the far end of the room was a tiny stage on which a small band played. This, I would later discover, was the Lavish Lounge. The band was Jarmean. How do I describe Jarmean to you? First of all, their proper name is jarmean? (small j and with the question mark). According to their CD sleeve (yes, I have their CD) jarmean [jahr-meen] means 1. a slang contraction of the phrase, "Do you know what I mean?" 2. Vaudeville anarchists - purveyors of metaphysical melodrama. This, I feel, encapsulates their style completely. They're an unconventional band: a singer in a tux and top hat playing an electric ukulele, a female drummer dressed like one of those wooden toy soldiers, a tuba player with colourful sunglasses and a tiny clown hat, another guy on a euphonium dressed in a sharp suit, a barefoot clarinet player and trumpet player dressed in a style that can only be described as 'highwayman meets pirate'. It's going to be difficult for me not to harp on about this band. They are without doubt, my find of the festival. Their style is, as they describe it, "punk as it would have been played 200 years ago". It sounds weird, but it's very accurate! It is also very, very fun. Of course I knew none of this at the time, except for the fun part that is. My mood changed in an instant and I was spellbound by these crazy musicians. There, in that clearing, in that bizarre setting which suited them so well, under the twinkling lights, they treated me and about ten other people to one of the most fun and wittiest sets I have ever witnessed. When their set finished, I hurried to see if they would be playing again. To my joy, I found that they would be playing every day! I made a note of the time and went on my way. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the biggest joy of attending a music festival. Not the headliners, not the camping or the atmosphere, but the excitement of finding an unknown band playing for a handful of people in a venue that isn't even listed in the daily schedule on the programme (the 319 page festival book devotes exactly 2 pages to the Lavish Lounge). That, to me, is the best thing about a festival. I would make one more similar discovery later (although not as great as this one), but for now this was good enough for me. I walked back to the festival a very happy man, determined to get more people to see this band. To that end, the links to their website are below. Enjoy! All my previous dark thoughts forgotten, I headed to the Word tent to watch Richard Hawley, who was excellent and The National who were sensational. However, nothing could match the experience of finding Jarmean, do you know what I mean? To find out more about jarmean? visit www.jarmean.com or www.myspace.com/jarmean Corinne Salisbury reviewed "Fair Trade" - no mention of Christoper though! - for the BTG |
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