Latitude 2014
Low Down
Lily replaces the cancelled headliners Two Door Cinema Club and is more than up to the challenge.
Review
Lily Allen stepped up to replace Two Door Cinema Club as headliner for the first night of music at Latitude festival last night. The announcement was met with a range of responses from frenzied adolescent (and covert middle aged) whoops of joy, to a barrage of unnecessary and abusive complaints on social media. I myself sat somewhere in the middle – initially disappointed by the swap, but intrigued to see the controversial mother of two, known as much for her candid outspokenness and diet fads as her singing, performing to the crowd at short notice.
I have to say, Lily Allen surprised me in the most positive of ways. Entering as she did in a short white dress, she looked like a beautiful bubbly swan. This was soon removed to reveal a fan tshirt advertising the band she was replacing, and there were several further fun costume changes throughout the show. Dancing around multicoloured glowing giant baby milk bottles, she lit up the stage with her energy, honesty – and beautiful sound. The old favourites were rolled out including The Fear, Smile and the bizarrely joyful Fuck You, and from start to finish she had the crowd bopping along in unison, synchronised middle fingers held proudly aloft.
A number of songs from the new album Sheezus were showcased and they were immediate sing-along hits, if somewhat jumbled in their delivery – spanning as they did pop, dance and some early-Allen style reggae too. All this, interspersed with her characteristic brutal bezzie-buds banter, amounted to a performance that no one could resist beaming and bouncing along to, 100 percent converted – at least for the duration of the show – from a sceptical indie head-nodder to a grinning pop crotch-thruster.
