- Latitude Festival Delights Audience with Singalongs and Iconic Performances
- George Ezra Wraps Up 18-Month World Tour with Emotion-Filled Concert
- Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Emotional Performance with Special Guest Janet Ellis
As the main act at the Latitude Festival, George Ezra provides redundant instructions.
“Halfway through this song,” he informs the audience, “I’m going to introduce you to some words, and we’re going to sing them together.”
The audience need not be asked. They are familiar with the routine. All day long, they have been singing at the peak of their lungs.
Whether by accident or design, festival administrators have scheduled an entire day of singalongs. A playlist of golden oldies and modern masterpieces on Radio 2.
Ezra is performing the final concert of his 18-month-long world tour.
However, twelve hours earlier, the main stage in Suffolk was opened by Manchester indie band James, who celebrated their 40th anniversary by reworking their back catalog with an orchestra and a gospel choir.
They begin with an ace – a subdued rendition of Sit Down that sweeps away any campfire dust from the audience.
“We performed at this time, when there would be no noise pollution, so we could perform some of our quieter songs,” explains lead singer Tim Booth.
Frustratingly, they almost abandon the goodwill by continuing the set with Dust Motes from their 2010 album and The Lake, an obscure B-side. Even Booth acknowledges that these songs will test the audience’s “concentration and patience,” which begs the question: why bother?
But when they play their songs, Tomorrow, Born Of Frustration, and Laid, the music comes alive. The audience member then yells, “Play Say Something!” to which the band, to his astonishment, agrees.
Booth requests that no one be told that a request was granted. It would be awful if this became popular.
The centerpiece of the album is Sometimes, which concludes with a lengthy chorus that alternates between the choir and the audience. The band forms a queue at the front of the stage, visibly moved by the response.
The stage manager concurs and grants them an additional ten minutes to keep the enchantment flowing.
Following Ireland’s Portrait This delivers some high-energy pop kicks, The Bootleg Beatles take the stage, boasting an unfair advantage in selecting their setlist from the world’s finest song catalog.
They begin with the mop-top classics – Can’t Buy Me Love, Twist and Shout, and Help – before veering into the post-Pepper era with I’ve Got A Feeling, Get Back, and Come Together.
They illustrate the two halves with era-appropriate costume changes, transitioning from well-groomed youths to unkempt iconoclasts.
“It’s amazing what LSD can do for your hair,” jokes the Bootleg John Lennon.
The set concludes with Hey Jude, which generates more nanas than Fyffes.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor performs Like A Prayer by Madonna, but she is more like a Ray of Light – high-kicking and shimmying around the stage, greeting everyone in the audience as streamers fly from her epaulets.
She completely disregards her new album to perform a Kitchen Disco set interspersed with covers of Moloko’s Sing It Back and Mojo’s Lady (Hear Me Tonight).
The emotional climax, however, occurs when she introduces her mother, former Blue Peter host Janet Ellis, who was observing from the side of the stage.
Sophie announces, “This is her very first festival.” “It took me 25 years to convince her to enter a profession… Similar to seeing the Queen.”
As she performs Young Blood, a song about the enduring love between her mother and stepfather John Leach, who died in 2020, the camera moves to Ellis as she wipes away tears.
After a brief reset, the Scottish rock band The Proclaimers take the stage, drawing a massive throng eager to sing (I’m Going to Be) 500 Miles.
Mimi Webb’s audience is smaller and younger, but no less enthusiastic, with children perched on their parents’ shoulders and chanting the lyrics to Red Flags and House On Fire.
Webb’s parents also make an appearance, staging an invasion of the stage to present her with a 23rd birthday cake and conduct an impromptu rendition of “Happy Birthday”
The singer later reveals that her birthday request for 2022 was to perform at Latitude.
“That was my objective for this year, and I am ecstatic to be here.”
Ezra attracts the largest and youngest audience of the entire weekend, with people carrying glow sticks, bubble guns, and Pokemon hats as they dance to his effortlessly upbeat pop songs.
It would take a heart of stone not to enjoy tracks like Anyone For You, Budapest, and Paradise, which all hold the tantalizing promise of escape (a dream everyone desperately clings to as the festival ends and they confront the mucky carpark).
When he shifts to the romantic beauty of Hold My Girl, you can hear a pin drop, and when he plays the jubilant Green Green Grass – “a celebration of life” – the party spills beyond the Obelisk arena, with children and their parents dancing in the food stalls.
Writing life-affirming pop songs is significantly more difficult than moping around being rebellious. The audience embraces him not because he is hip, but because he represents an aspiration we all share.
Or at least the majority of us, at least.
She moves alluringly across the stage in a silver jumpsuit, punching out the rhythms of goth-punk classics such as Spellbound, Happy House, and Hong Kong Garden.
Her still-loyal fans are so anxious to approach that she must caution them.
She exclaims, “You’re all crammed in like sardines,” before launching into Kiss Them For Me. “You need space to dance.”
On the main stage, Ezra is about to conclude his performance.
“We’ve been performing these songs on tour for the past 18 months, and this is our final performance,” he declares.
“It has been an absolute pleasure to share this with you.”
Then he begins Shotgun, his biggest and most singalong-friendly song, accompanied by pyrotechnics, confetti, and air punching.
As if to establish a point, Latitude did not allow their headliner to speak last.
As the audience departs, the speakers begin playing the 1980s anomaly Break My Stride by Matthew Wilder.
This becomes, for no evident reason, the final chorus of Sing-Along Sunday.
