WEEPING larches can elicit strange emotional responses from people. The usual feelings are ones of sombreness and forlornness. Because of their unusual form - they have been described in terms of creatures from outer space - weeping larches tend to become the focal point of a landscape, whether that was the designer's intention or not. They are extremely rare and such is their effect that they have been known to stop people in their tracks. Arborists go into rapture about them.
There aren't any weeping larches in Ireland, but there are two in the UK.
They can be found on the historic Henham Park Estate in Suffolk, just at the entrance to the ancient fairytale woodland on the 11-acre demesne. These two trees are very important - not just in themselves but because they are being used to promote a new music-based festival on the Henham Park Estate this July which its promoters feel will change how the music festival, as we know it, is curated, presented and experienced. Quite rightly, the two magnificent weeping larches take precedence over the other atypical attraction - Boris Johnson.
The Latitude festival (July 14th-16th) unashamedly describes itself as a "Genteel" festival. If you think you have heard all this before you are confusing the genteel festival with the boutique festival (Electric Picnic etc). While Electric Picnic is the best music festival in this country, it is still, at its core, a traditional music event - albeit one that caters for the more discerning type of music lover.
Latitude is not just about music; it will also do social debate, art, comedy, film, literature and theatre.
It's all the idea of Melvin Benn from the Mean Fiddler organisation. Benn is the man rightly credited with saving the Glastonbury Festival when, a few years back, hordes of vile Crusties descended on Michael Eavis's farm without tickets and trampled over the scant security cordon. They came in such numbers that they put severe pressure on the delicate infrastructure of Glastonbury, and the following year a regrettable but necessary huge fence had to erected.
"I live and breathe festivals" says Benn. "I visit so many of them, but I have never been to one which isn't a copy of Reading, Glastonbury or Homelands. I wanted a festival which was more like engrossing yourself in a quality Sunday paper. I want that genteel, less manic feel and I am looking forward to that feeling of being able to listen live to the music and then to the words of an author or poet or environmentalist rather than just reading it in the newspapers or listening on a CD. I want this to be more like the Hay-on-Wye literary festival and I want people such as Boris Johnson here debating with somebody from my side of the political fence".
At Latitude this year, if you can drag yourself away from gazing in awe at the weeping larches, you'll find music from Antony and The Johnsons, Snow Patrol and Mogwai. The art, comedy, film, literature and theatre stages/happenings have yet to be fully confirmed but definitely making an appearance will be the "Guilty Pleasures Disco" - a London club night which plays only soft rock classics that you're supposed
to hate but secretly really love.
You can get away with it by pretending you're listening with ironic detachment. Even though you're not.
Expect the first Genteel festival to hit Ireland next year. After all, Genteel is the new Boutique. If you're put off somewhat by the title "Genteel", given that it could be viewed as the direct antithesis of rock 'n' roll, just learn to accept that the idea of hordes of people sitting in a field squinting to see a band on a stage a few miles away while teenage brats engage in formation vomiting all around is so over.
Weeping larches. Mogwai. Boris Johnson. It all makes perfect sense. Put the Pimms on ice, old chap. I'm on my way.
www.latitudefestival.co.uk/home/
