Reports on an indie-pop institution and the hottest band in blogland, fresh from Suffolk's dusty fields... Camera Obscura are not exactly what springs to mind when you brainstorm out your list of classic festival bands, but this slow-burning Glaswegian indie-pop outfit smoulder with style at the Uncut Arena. Done out smart in suits and ballgowns, they are clearly not trying to be anything that they’re not – “Thank you for letting us play a quiet one,” says Tracyanne Campbell, at one point – but songs like “Let’s Get Out Of This Country” and their nod to Lloyd Cole And The Commotions, “Lloyd I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken” unfurl beautifully, all whirling mellotron and warm brass. Arguably, they’re a band that’s had more success in maturing the Scottish indie-pop sound than any of their contemporaries – certainly, no late period Belle & Sebastian never sounded so well-wrought and effortless – and the sea of colourful balloons punted from fist to fist above the crowd confirm this is a band to get fanatical about, albeit in a slightly twee way. Passion Pit, meanwhile, probably can’t believe their luck. The brainchild of Michael Angelakos, who wrote the first Passion Pit songs as a Valentine’s Day present to his then girlfriend, they’ve since exploded across the blogosphere, and their set this evening at the Sunrise Arena confirms this is a band with a buzz about them. Essentially the authors of emotive electronic-pop songs of an intimate sort of nature, add one tent with a low roof and a thousand-odd bodies and we’ve got what looks like a real festival event, songs like “The Reeling” sending shivers of excitement through the crowd and, if my eyes don’t deceive me – seriously, it’s heaving here - a whole lot of crowd-surfing. Sure, they’ve got a sweet edge, but that doesn’t mean Passion Pit aren’t out to make you dance, too. Right now, her majesty Grace Jones is about to his the stage, so I'm off to stumble downhill again, doing my level best not to end up upside down in a ditch along the way. Also on the schedule tonight is a midnight performance from Jeffrey Lewis and, for the real festival hardcore, a 2am set from Chas And Dave. Will I make it that long? I'll let you know tomorrow. LOUIS PATTISON

Anyway, I arrange to meet a friend down at the Obelisk stage to catch Broken Music, who she’s recently seen playing to about four people in Manchester but thinks will be worth having another look at. So I’m just stepping through this little arch thing they have that you have to go through to get onto the leafy path through the trees and down the hill into the separate county, it feels like, where all the mini Latitude stages are when I’m pulled over for a random security check and asked to give my name to see if it matches the one on the laminate we are all obliged to wear. I larkishly say Lee Harvey Oswald, which I quickly regret, not just because it’s obviously not my name but more seriously takes about 20 minutes to explain that I am actually who it says I am on said laminate and not the Lone Assassin, the Single Gunman, who from a window in the Texas Book Depository shot JFK, in the process ruining Jackie’s dress with blood stain and brain parts. By the time I’ve cleared all this up, Broken Music have been and also gone, so Helen and I find some seats to see who’s next up on the Obelisk stage, which turns out to be The Airborne Toxic Event. They have one thing going for them as far as I’m concerned, which is that they’ve taken their name from the Don DeLillo novel, White Noise, but Helen is keen to see them because the last couple of times they’ve played Manchester, their shows have sold out so quickly she hasn’t been able to get tickets. Helen thinks they sound like a cross between Arcade Fire and The Killers, not a bad description. I spend most of their set struck between the resemblance of their lead singer to Robbie Williams trying to look like Born In The USA-era Bruce Springsteen while trying to sound not too much like Adam Duritz from Counting Crows. The surprisingly small crowd in front of the stage seems to like them well enough, though, so good on them. Patrick Wolf, looking like God knows what, looms into view just as Helen has to go off on some important business and I go with her, stopping off at the Poetry Tent just in time to hear former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion read a poem called The Mower, a moving elegy to his late father that first makes me laugh out loud then get an bit teary. I am then drawn to the Literary Tent, where Vivien Westwood has drawn a huge crowd for something billed as the Active Resistance Performance. Arriving late, I have no idea what this is all about, but she looks great, in a gown she might have worn on a Cunard liner in the 30s, on a cruise to end all cruises, icebergs permitting. She loses me completely, though, when she starts riffing on the intrinsic values of bamboo and so here I am. Doves are on now, with Spiritualized to follow, which means I have to as they say dash. Allan Jones

I remarked yesterday of the rather neat symmetry that took me to Fever Ray and Bat For Lashes. Well, something similar has happened again this evening. This time, it’s White Lies and Doves, who followed each other at the Obelisk Arena and who both, in admittedly different ways, are exponents on a similar style of music. This is what I’d broadly term big music. By which I mean, a particular Eighties rock sound – cascading drum patterns, sweeping synth sounds , chiming guitars, you know the drill. It’s the kind of thing bands like Echo & The Bunnymen did well, and to some degree The Chameleons, too. White Lies’ singer Harry McVeigh appears to position himself in the lineage of earnest young frontmen. You might think of Ian Curtis, the Chameleons’ Mark Burgess, Editors’ Tom Smith, for instance. He stares fixedly out at the audience when he sings, barely moving apart from to stab at his guitar. “”I met a friend I once knew at a funeral,” he sings at the start of “From The Stars”. He, and the rest of the band, dress in black. It’s very sincere. I don’t particularly have a problem with this – just so’s it’s on the record – and it’s pretty apparent that the audience are lapping it up. But, as I leave the stage and pass the Comedy Tent, where Adam Hills is racing 20ft high, pink, plastic poodles across the head of the crowd, I can’t help wishing White Lies lightened their mood somewhat, and relaxed. Doves, too, are part of this big music idea I’m kicking around. But, conspicuously, there’s a lot of difference between them and White Lies. Although they, too, deploy a similarly epic sweep in their songs, there’s something far more interesting bubbling away under the surface. As they race through “Jetstream”, “Winter Hill”, “Kingdom Of Rust” and “Two Of Us”, I’m struck at how broad and impressionistic their songs are. They don’t particularly subscribe to the notion of traditional songwriting. By which I mean, their songs are defined more by textures, than verse-chorus-verse-chorus-break-chorus. It’s perhaps understandable, considering the House music background of Jimi Goodwin and Andy and Jez Williams; a genre which privileges feeling and momentum over conventional pop constructs or dynamics. As it goes, Doves deliver a wildly popular set, Jimi himself a particularly avuncular figure, dressed in a long sleeve grey shirt, who has a good line in between song banter. “It’s nice to see so many kids and babies here,” he deadpans. “It makes us feel like a hip and relevant band.” They finish with a storming ”There Goes The Fear”, by far their best song, just as the final shades of colour leach from the sky. Right, Spiritualized are on in about 10 minutes, so I need to get myself off to the UNCUT Arena for Jason. Allan’s just popped a can of beer open and is raring to go. Space rock, here we come. Back later.

Waves of blinding camera flashes and unbridled shrieks of worship greet the grand dame as she emerges from behind a curtain, in a scene straight from an old time Hollywood movie premiere. But this is not Rita Hayworth or Lauren Bacall, but national treasure Vivienne Westwood, who has come to Latitude's literary tent to read from her "cultural manifesto". This is Active Resistance, a detailed and exhaustive study that aims to contextualise commerce, creativity and media into some semblance of ordered agenda. As Viv herself, resplendant in what looks like a gauze sari, explains in her introduction: "Art gives culture and culture is the antidote to propaganda. We all love art and some of you claim to be artists. Without judges there is no art. She only exists when we know her. Does she exist? The answer to this question is of vital importance because if art is alive the world will change. No art, no progress." Vivienne then expanded on her themes with the help of several readers, including a man dressed, almost inevitably, as a pirate ("I plunder for you! Stick with me and you might get a share of the bounty. My name is Progress!"), and versions of Pinocchio, Aristotle and Lewis Carroll's Alice, each hammily taking different sides of convoluted arguments. Pretentious? Certainly. But Westwood's ideas still bristle with humour and a healthy dose of self-mockery, curiosity and intrigue. It's typical behaviour from a woman who's every move in a long and fascinating career has never been less than interesting, who generates levels of affection normally reserved for pop stars or screen goddesses. On Saturday afternoon she made her fans fall in love with her all over again. TERRY STAUNTON Pic credit: PA Photos

So, day two at Latitude Festival, and a chance to wander around the site ensconced in full on sunshine - there are many little nooks all over the site. Come see...

Here's some random lists of things we've seen while out and about on site, assembled by the UNCUT Latitude work team. That's us. FIVE THINGS YOU CAN BUY ON SITE 1. A spiritual doorbell = £10 2. A copy of the Saturday Guardian from the supermarket tent in the camp site = £1.80 3. Dirk Bogarde's "Snakes & Ladders" from the bookshop = £3.50 4. Yellow Magic Orchestra's "You're Gonna Miss Me" (slight surface scratches) from the second hand record shop = £1 5. A comedy hat = £10 OUR ON SITE FOOD RECOMMENDATIONS Allan -- sausage baguette (£4) Michael -- chicken fajitas (£5) Farah -- chicken Thai curry (£6) Terry -- chicken fajitas (£5) Louis -- vegetarian Thai red curry (£6) FIVE BEST T SHIRT SLOGANS "Men Lie" (worn by a man) "I Don't Like Labour" (worn by a child) "Westerburg High Class Of '88" (for all you Heathers fans reading this) "Tom Baker For Prime Minister" "My Dad's In Prison" (worn by a baby!) More gubbins soon...

Just back from the Uncut Stage, which has hosted some pretty remarkable performances so far today. Opening the stage at midday was Wildbirds And Peacedrums, a Scandinavian boy-girl duo peddling an unusual, experimental take on the blues. Vocalist Mariam Wallentinis is blessed with the sort of gospel-tinged voice you wouldn’t feel terribly silly comparing to Amy Winehouse, say. It’s what the twosome do with it, though, that’s truly surprising. Sat behind the drums, Andreas Werliin whips up pounding, tribal rhythms which Wallentin uses as a bed for all manner of primal exhortations. “You see, I’m lost without your rhythm,” she pleads, kicking off her shoes and bounding, trance-like across the stage. It’s relatively short on tunes - although Wallentinis sometimes beats out simple melodies on steel drums – but really, though, it’s all about the raw, primal rhythms, building towards crescendos and staying there, right at the brink. Following is Marnie Stern, and the continuing lack of commercial success granted to this New York singer/guitarist is baffling in the extreme. I mean, what’s not to like? Pretty blonde in a dangerously short dress, playing the sort of most excellent electric guitar that would have Bill And Ted tossing the mane and throwing the horns. Today, Marnie seems to have turned down some of the super-complex, finger-tapping excesses of her albums in favour of straighter hard-rockin’ tracks like "Transformer", although it’s still a tricksy, often dissonant tangle that’s certainly ambitious in its musical and lyrical approach. Stern’s guileless charisma keeps this performance firmly on the map, though: whether chatting about vaginas, glugging beer and vodka, or trading flamboyant licks with her bassist, her performance is a joy to watch. A great show from St Vincent, too. “My name’s St Vincent and I’m from Dallas, Texas and I’m very happy to be here,” she says, by way of introduction. “This song’s called “Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood”. Which says a lot about Annie Clark’s peculiar mix of choral pop and unusually dark subject matter. Here, the pop miniatures of Clark’s recent album Actor are worked up with eddying clarinets and blasts of saxophone – and they sound pretty comfortable in their new skin. Right, that’s all for now – if you’re reading this from the site, I can recommend forthcoming sets from The XX on the Sunrise Stage at 6.45pm, Camera Obscura at 7.20pm, and of course, tonight’s Obelisk Stage headliner, Grace Jones. Catch you in a bit. LOUIS PATTISON

Predictably, perhaps, the afternoon’s biggest draw – so far, at least – is for Simon Armitage. At 2pm, the Poetry Tent is rammed, with the crowd extending about 20 people deep around the perimeter. One curious passer-by asks my neighbour who’s on. “Simon Armitage,” says the guy standing next to me. “Sorry,” says the passer-by, “I don’t know who he is.” “He’s only the most important poet since Andrew Motion.” “You’ve lost me. Who’s Andrew Motion?” “Obviously,” comes the withering reply, “you never studied GSCE English at the start of the Noughties…” It is certainly worth flagging up that the crowd here is, by and large, conspicuously young. It says much, I think, about the way Armitage’s work has impacted on a twentysomething generation of former CGSE students that he can inspire such affection, after the school texts have been shut. A lot of this is arguably as much down to Armitage’s persona as the body of work itself. He’s tremendously personable, filling in the background to each poem or reading with anecdotes and stories that are wry, warm and mostly self-deprecating. Here he is, for instance, talking about his native Huddersfield: “Huddersfield is a punk town. Punk came along, and it’s never really gone away. You tell everyone you meet that you saw the Sex Pistols last ever gig at Ivanhoe’s nightclub in Huddersfield. But we didn’t. We were too scared.” He has a brilliant, deliberately windy story about how, he and his wife, went on holiday to Cornwall. They discovered the Radio 1 Roadshow was in town and, for reasons they still are unable to fathom, decided to go along. “Just as we stepped into the venue, it finished,” he deadpans. The poem itself, “Roadshow”, is typical of Armitage’s brilliant writing, and transforms the Radio 1 Roadshow into a surprising thing rich with an impossibly exotic promise: “We were drawn uphill by the noise and light; a silver, extraterrestrial glow beyond the hill’s head; a deep, cardiovascular bass in the hill’s hollow chest” He reads, too, from Gig, his exceptional memoir of his failed attempts to make it in an indie band in the Eighties and how that set-back impacted on his decision to become a poet. It’s great stuff, and key certainly to Armitage’s appeal to a younger audience. Poetry, for him, is an elegant craft, and he understands that you can apply that craft just as readily to anything, whether it be Middle English poetry (his translation of Gawain And The Green Knight) or awkward fumblings with a guitar in the North of England circa 1984. Everything is there to be used, everything is accessible; this is not about ring-fencing poetry for lofty subjects and dusty volumes, but making it as broad church as possible. Fantastic.

It’s an early start for everyone today, so not long after what seems like daybreak I am making my way down the leafy trail to the Uncut Arena to see Wildbirds And Peacedrums, about whom a I know as much as I do the internal working of the combustion engine. On my unsteady way, I notice a sign someone’s pinned to a tree that say I LOVE YOU MORE THAN MY RECORD COLLECTION, a declaration of affection so passionate it must be an exaggeration. My determined march towards the Uncut Arena is further delayed when I call in at the Poetry Tent, where a blonde woman at a Perspex lectern, whose name it turns out is Molly Naylor, is reciting a poem, part of which is about her discovery of her “inner Marxist”. This makes a change from yesterday when at whatever point I dropped by people in cardigans were reading poems which consisted mainly of descriptions of urban blight as metaphor for the urban condition or else waxing nostalgically about the bands whose music they loved in their youth, which unanimously seems to have been The Smiths. There is serial mention, too, in their verse, of Ikea, apparently the very essence of evil in the modern world, unless I have got hold of the wrong end of their poetic schtick. Wildbirds And Peacedrums, meanwhile, turn out to be a young woman in a black lace top, satin mini-skirt and lime green tights banging a cowbell and shrieking loud enough to wake the dead (successfully so in my case) while her partner, a bluff young cove with a beard, smacks seven colours of hell out of a customised drum kit. It’s bracing stuff so soon after breakfast, but enthusiastically-received by a surprisingly large crowd, not all of whom can be sheltering from the drizzle that’s just started to fall outside. Their next number, which is something, I think, called “I Am Lost Without Your Rhythm”, is noticeably quieter – not exactly hymnal, but at least not quite so much like the sound of the brick-by-brick demolition of a factory chimney. They end quite strikingly with a testifying blues, a chain-gang holler, something that may originally have been recorded at Parchman Farm in the crackly 20s, a hint also here of a plantation gospel, the ghosts of slavery calling. It ends, deafeningly. At which point, it strikes me that 20 years ago these people would have ended up on the cover of Melody Maker after one single and a limited edition cassette, raved over by The Stud Brothers, David Stubbs and other champions of the noisily eccentric. On my way back to the Uncut HQ at the Latitude press tent to write this, I drop by the Literary tent where there’s a very serious debate taking place on the subject of TABLOID CULTURE: IS OUR NEWS MEDIA WALKING A NEW STREET OF SHAME? According to a solemn-looking man in a cardigan who I’m sure I once gave a guinea for a copy of The Big Issue, it is. Allan Jones

We've been ear-wigging on your behalf again, to bring you sagest, most insightful snippets of overheard conversations. Behold, the latest musings from Latitude's fields of philosophers. 1. "There should be an emancipation tent here, where cool kids can go and divorce their ridiculously-dressed parents." 2. "He's coming back. Change the subject and hide the brie." 3. Man walking past the comedy tent: "I've seen him on that telly panel show. He sits next to the funny one." 4. "Ding-chicky, ding-chicky, ding ding chick. That's exactly how the chorus goes. I can't believe you don't know it!" 5. "The only thing more ludicrous than a poet talking about typos in the American Declaration of Independence is the fact that 30-odd people are listening to him and nodding." 6. Girl shouting into mobile: "I'm at a festival...! Not sure, Altitude I think...! Let me check with Stacy and ring you back!" 7. "I remember nothing about Bat For Lashes apart from holding on to some rope. It was brilliant." 8. "I'm not entirely against jewellery on men, but that bracelet crosses the line into utter faggotry." 9. "I've got jam. Shit, I've got jam." A punter falls foul of the glass container ban at the festival entrance. 10. "Wait for me while I go to the loo. You can't dance to the Pet Shop Boys with a full colon."

An early Saturday highlight, for me at any rate, is Band Of Skulls, playing in the Sunrise Arena down in the woods. Such a bucolic setting might seem entirely incongruous for a band who specialize in sinewy, blues rock. And at such an early hour, too, when most people are still digesting their breakfasts. Yet, amazingly, it works. I suppose it might be something to do with the incredible earthiness of their sound, and it’s primal swagger, that they themselves seem perfectly at home among the trees and soil. What does, in fact, strike me as most incongruous about Band Of Skulls is how deeply their music references a specific kind of American blues – as practised by the White Stripes – that it comes as a shock when singer/guitarist Russell Marsden thanks the crowd in a conspicuously English accent. I was expecting an American drawl. Still, it’s fantastic stuff – bearded, blonde haired Marsden and his musical partner, singer/bassist Emma Richardson (looking like a young Chrissie Hynde) swapping lines, blasting riffs off each other, thundering their way impressively through their debut album, Baby Darling Doll Face Honey. Anyway, off to Simon Armitage. This looks to me like another highlight in the making... Back later.

Friday’s highlights, then. ** Fever Ray in the UNCUT Arena seems, by common consent, to have been an early Latitude peak. On stage lighting by way of standard lamps, a striking laser show and a backing band dressed partly as bird people. Oh, and the songs were pretty good, too. ** Pet Shop Boys covering Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” as high-energy disco. Chris Martin has never sounded so good. ** The Pretenders covering Dylan’s “Forever Young” on the Main Stage. ** Jeremy Warmsley covering Tom Waits. In French. In the Music And Film Arena. C’est bon, n’est ce pas..? Mais, oui. ** Jeremy Hardy’s brilliant, hilarious musings in the UNCUT Arena. ** The bloke in the woods last night dressed as a robot doing dancing to early 80s electro. ** Jesus for a day! There were people walking on the surface of the lake. We don’t know how it’s done, but we honestly saw festival-goers striding across water. ** Wheelbarrows for hire. This year’s festival innovation. The best and quickest way to transport tired and grumpy children across the site to beddie-bies. Aw. ** And our heartiest congratulations to festival-goers Julian and Dora, who got engaged during Regina Spektor’s set. We don’t know ‘em, they don’t know us, but we couldn’t help but wade in with warm handshakes when he got proposed. On one knee. Ring, everything. Heart-warming stuff. And an apology to anyone who tried to log on to the site yesterday evening, but found they couldn't. We had a few minor technical glitches – hey, it’s a festival, what do you expect? – but everything should be running smoothly now. Thanks for your patience. Anyway, off to Band Of Skulls, Simon Armitage and then cheer on UNCUT's own David Quantick, who'll be interviewing Rotters' Club author Jonathan Coe in the Literary Arena.