Latitude Festival - Latitude Festival 2009

Latitude Festival 2009

The fourth edition took place on 16–19 July 2009. Acts that played include Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Thom Yorke, Grace Jones and Pet Shop Boys as the main headliners, alongside Editors, Doves, and Bat for Lashes. The headliners and ticket details were announced on the Latitude Festival official site on 23 March 2009, at 7pm and sold out near to the event. More acts were confirmed at around 12:00 pm on the following day. These acts had already been previously reported on BBC Radio 1, but denied by festival organisers. Also announced in the press were The Gossip. On 3 April 2009 the official Latitude website confirmed Magazine, Spiritualized and Newton Faulkner to be playing. In June, it was announced that Thom Yorke would play an exclusive solo set as the festival's special guest (a role taken by Joanna Newsom in 2008). BBC Radio covered the 4 day event with live music, comedy, sessions and interviews featured in shows across Radio 2, Radio 4, 6 Music and BBC Suffolk. The total attendance for the weekend was 25,000.

The poetry arena included performances from Andrew Motion, Brian Patten, Roger Lloyd Pack (performing T.S Eliot's The Waste Land), Jackie Kay, Simon Armitage and Jeffrey Lewis; The Comedy Arena featured Jo Brand, Ed Byrne, Mark Thomas, Sean Lock, Adam Hills, Sean Hughes and Dave Gorman; The Theatre Arena showcased Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Bush Theatre and Paines Plough; The Literary Arena presented Blake Morrison, Jonathan Coe, Mark Steel, Vivienne Westwood, Sir Peter Blake, Frank Skinner and Luke Haines.