Comic –turned-DJ Mark Lamarr’s annual Latitude sojourn saw him curate a rare treat for an intimate gaggle of revellers crammed into the Music and Film Arena in the wee small hours of Sunday morning. A tie-in with his radio show, God’s Jukebox saw Lamarr presenting five of his favourite acts over five hours over Saturday night and early Sunday morning. The penultimate of these – Massachusetts native Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed and his backing band The True Loves, were something really quite special. Fresh from a guest appearance playing some storming harmonica solos with Seasick Steve in the Obelisk Arena earlier, Reed had jaws resoundingly dropping with some bona-fide old school soul screaming. If you closed your eyes and you could’ve been listening to prime James Brown hollering his way through the greatest songs he never wrote, such was the gravity of Reed’s voice and the relentlessly tight groove of his band. His first show on British soil, Reed’s Latitude appearance was, as Lamarr himself said ‘something to tell the grandkids’ – truly phenomenal.

After this and closing the evening were a band who Lamarr was famous for ‘Never Minding’ on BBC2 for a number of years – punk rock legends The Buzzcocks. Although a little older and craggier than in their prime, the Mancunian quartet tore through their greatest hits and brought some snarling punk-rock attitude to an arena more used to arthouse flicks and beard scratching film buffs. ‘What Do I Get’ evoked some fervent call-and-response cries from energetic devotees down the front, while the showstopping ‘Ever Fallen In Love…’ prompted the largest amount of pogoing ever to take place in a makeshift cinema.  Come the end of Lamarr’s extraordinary evening of live music, hundreds of happy campers trudged back to their tents sweaty and smiling thanks to a riotous performance from this unsurpassable British institution.


Francis Whittaker