Features

At some point in the last few years, Rickie Lee Jones appears to have subtly evolved from the Duchess Of Coolsville into a spiritual, raging poet-figure who comes across like a West Coast counterpart of Patti Smith.

Trekking down to Latitude's Lake Stage, I hear that the hotly-tipped Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong are the new Television. The bad news is they’re not the new Television, but they are a pretty good Strokes.

Ah, so this is art rock, Latitude style. Sad to report, it does nothing very much for me. But I guess it's always going to be hard to follow the Hold Steady.

It's all gone a bit Late Review round here. In the absence of Tom Paulin, here's UNCUT's Arts Blog. Latitude is not just about music but comedy, literature, theatre, film and cabaret too – plus various hybrids of all of them. Which can mean being assailed by armies of performance-art gonks and patchy student plays about the Iraq war in the middle of a forest.

It's been an amazing day for startling-voiced female singers at Latitude. Having just been overawed by the ethereal primeval vocals from Bat For Lashes over on the main stage, I wandered into Joan As Policewoman in a busy Uncut Arena.

How many times have people written this summer about The Hold Steady being the unexpected hits of a festival? Enough times, I guess, for the hardest-working band in showbusiness to become blase about these sort of shows. The thing is, as Craig Finn surveys the crowd with undisguised glee, it's clear that this remarkable band's appetite for rock'n'roll is still heroically potent.

Something of a full afternoon, I have to report. So busy, in fact, I've only just got round to my first beer of the day. But, happily, I also had my first Latitude highlight: Bat For Lashes.

Afternoon, lovely day here at Latitude, pretty densely populated with singer-songwriters, it has to be said. I started the day at the lovely Sunrise stage in the woods(apparently, its strikingly mellow atmosphere was fractured yesterday when Les Rita Mitsouko got booed off).

The infamous Latitude 'catpeople' - apparently we're ALL cats inside. Come to their cabin to discover your inner feline self.

Or, what I did this morning at Latitude. Despite feeling relatively delicate today (ah, bless the pear cider), a gentle stroll round the Latitude site does wonders for the constitution.