Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip were pelted with beer cups. Isn't that nice? Photograph: Kelly Nestruck
Its name may rhyme with attitude, but the sold-out music-and-more festival which took place in Suffolk this weekend was notable for a distinct lack of rock star posturing and audience grumbling. With consistently sunny weather and an absence of mud, the three days of bands were - with the exception of the £8 programmes and a bit of sound bleeding from one stage to the next - so merry and euphoric that even Thom Yorke would have brushed off the old mouth muscles and cracked a grin.
As a lover of miserable music, such a prospect would usually strike me as pure, freaking hell. But, after first taking fright at all the good vibes, eventually it dawned on me that when you're in a green field on the edge of little lake surrounded by sheep painted in neon colours, cheer beats fear every time. The bands who were too serious (the National) or portentous (Bat for Lashes) or who whinged unnecessarily (I'm looking at you, Camera Obscura) left the crowd underwhelmed, but those who let out a joyful sound were cheered to the tent tops, or if they were playing an outdoor stage the clouds, or, when the sky was empty and dazzlingly blue, the very heavens themselves.
Barf, I know. But, what can I say, the jocundity rubbed off on me. The three most infectiously effervescent performers were no doubt:
· Romeo Stodart, the teddy bear who fronts the Magic Numbers and dominated the festival's feel-good Friday. In addition to the Numbers' chirpy set on the main Obelisk stage, Romeo turned up to guest with Midlake and, later, was invited on stage by headliner Damien Rice to play a joyous cover of Dylan's I Shall Be Released. The only person who had a bigger smile on his face was...
· Craig Finn, the jolly dude who fronts Counting Crows. Sorry, I mean The Hold Steady. Playing the Obelisk on Saturday afternoon, the last day of a tour that started on May 12, the Minnesotan looked like a little chubby kid in an ice cream factory located in Candyville on the planet Butteronia. Or, from another perspective, he looked like an overexcited Chihuahua on heat. Or, from another, a newly minted rock star who is a little too in love with his own lyrics. (The way he ends every song by stopping the music and then speaking the. Last. Line. Like this. Gets annoying.)
But I'm being a jerk. You'd have to be a curmudgeon not to have bubbled along with the bobbing crowd to this frolicsome fivesome whose ranks includes a wine-swilling keyboardist who dresses like John Cleese impersonating a French waiter. The only ones more deliciously over-the-top in the blithe department were...
· Au Revoir Simone, three long-haired wisps of women from the States who make synth-draped music. Alone, their pearly whites wilted next to Finn, but when their grinning powers combined, twelve people were rushed to the infirmary after being blinded by the sun reflected off their enamel. (Later, their sight was restored by a touch from Jarvis Cocker.)
ARS went overboard with their praise of Lee Thomson, the drummer from Camera Obscura, who gamely replaced their missing drum machine. "We've never played with a live drummer before!" squealed either Erika, Annie or Heather (who can tell them, apart?). "That was so fun!" said another. "Lee, you're amazing!" said the third. "Let's turn ourselves into light and form tri-coloured rainbows!" said the non-existent fourth.
There are other moments that swept away my gloom at Latitude too:
· Herman Dune, whose chin seems to have kidnapped Amy Winehouse's beehive, telling the crowd the tale of being asked for an interview by a young journalist, who only realised too late that Dune, in fact, was not Scroobius Pip.
· Scroobius Pip himself with Dan Le Sac. The poet MC got pelted with beer cups on Saturday night - and he was overjoyed. In order to be eco-friendly, Latitude serves beer in reusable cups and charges a £2 deposit to make sure people bring them back. When Pip mentioned the pittance he was earning for the gig, fans rained the stage with empty lager luggers, earning him, easily, 24 quid.
· Teenagers. Compared to old-fogey Glastonbury, Latitude was overrun by hormonal pizzafaces drinking underage and inhaling laughing gas - which was generally great, except when they vomited outside our tent. But there were also plenty of twentysomethings and a slough of families with children. Everyone coexisted happily, bar a flashpoint on Saturday when one group of youngsters walked around with a picket that read, "OLD PEOPLE NO". By the end of the night, however, the sign had been cut up and a dancer in the woods was hopping up and down holding just the word "NO" - but upside down, so it read "ON". Generational warfare avoided.
What was your cheeriest moment of Latitude? I had to leave after the fantastic fiddler Final Fantasy - how were Jarvis Cocker and Arcade Fire? Did the joy reach talking-in-tongues levels?
