Latitude Festival
Henman Park, Suffolk
★★★★

THIS year’s line up at the Latitude Festival was heavy on nostalgia with headliners Sting, Fatboy Slim and Snow Patrol having started their music careers in 1977, 1985 and 1994 respectively. But while each seemed content to spend most of their sets looking back at the “good old days,” there were others elsewhere on the bill with an eye on the future and much more to say.

At 67, Billy Bragg is only six years younger than Sting, but he isn’t exactly mellowing with age. Towards the beginning of his Friday afternoon slot on the main stage he warned the crowd “I’m just as annoyingly political as ever” before launching into his 2017 track Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted, this post-Brexit protest sounding just as relevant today: “There isn’t really any room for dreamers/ If you have principles, that’s nice/ The market isn’t interested in values/ Except for those it can define as price.”

Bragg is just as much an orator as a singer, with a football anecdote segueing neatly into two songs he wrote with Johnny Marr, The Boy Done Good and then Sexuality, this second with the slightly adjusted lyrics he first introduced in 2021 to deliver a trans rights protest – changing the word “gay” to “they” and “find some common ground” to “the right pronouns.”

Bragg explained that he changed the lyrics not because he is in any way sidelining the fight for equal rights for the gay and lesbian communities, but because he’s proud of how much has been achieved in this area and sees trans people as some of the most marginalised and persecuted of our times, pointing his finger at the current Labour government for their lack of support for this community.

By the end of his set Bragg is, as ever, still Waiting For The Great Leap Forward, this time his enduring hit is delivered with most of its lyrics true to the original, though there is the notable “The greatest battle of our time/ Free, free Palestine” as it closes out.

Latitude for the most part is more about family fun than political activism, but the Palestinian struggle filters through more than once with bands including the spellbinding Jacob Alon and raucous Sorry displaying the Palestine flag on stage in a mark of solidarity.

Flags are probably one of the oldest ways in which to display one’s allegiances, but also in evidence at Latitude was one of the newest ways in which to spread messages – internet communities. Within the last 18 months Spotify listening counts have been upended by legions of new fans uncovering artists’ forgotten gems thanks to the sharing power of social media, and in the Suffolk countryside the virtual world became real.

Bôa have been making music for over 30 years with modest success, but suddenly their career has gone into overdrive thanks to Duvet, from their 2001 debut album, being picked up by TikTok’s home-video makers, pushing it over three-quarters of a billion listens on Spotify, and counting. The viral spread of the song continued at Latitude as their set on the third-biggest Sunrise Stage appeared to attract most of the teenagers on the site, many of whom filmed the song that closed the set, in portrait mode, of course.

Though a much bigger name, French electro outfit Air, who headlined the Second Stage on the final night with a masterfully accomplished performance, are also enjoying reaching a whole new audience as one of the more obscure songs from their back catalogue Playground Love, from 2000’s The Virgin Suicides soundtrack, has similarly gone viral on TikTok, becoming their most played track on Spotify, and pulling in a new, younger crowd.

In keeping with the weekend’s nostalgic slant, the band that delivered one of the most exciting and up-to-the-minute sets, was one that, ironically, relies on stories of the past.

Public Service Broadcasting’s Saturday-night slot featured three songs from last year’s album The Last Flight, a celebration of female success via the life and adventures of Amelia Earhart, along with a selection of crowd-pleasers from their other four studio albums. A blast of Paranoid in tribute to the late, great Ozzy Osbourne, complete with suitably scary visuals, being a memorable and unique highlight.

The set neatly summed up the weekend, proving that nostalgia is often enjoyable, but it is especially so when its power is harnessed to deliver a new message.