Latitude @ Southwold, Suffolk (From Oxford Mail)

Latitude @ Southwold, Suffolk

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AFTER hearing that Tom Jones had tore down the Sunrise Tent on the Thursday night as a warm up to the actual festival, we expecting a lot of good things from Latitude - and we were not disappointed.

Latitude Festival is not a gathering for just young or old, but for the whole family - with punters rangingin age from five to 50.

And no matter what your age, at this festival there was always something to do or someone to see.

For the younger children there was a separate play area within the festival where parents could leave their children safely to play in a mammoth play arena while they enjoyed the numerous acts that on show over the weekend.

The site itself is one of the best I have been to.

It consisted of a lake in the middle, on which you could hire boats or punts.

It was surrounded by woods - where you could find the ravers in the evening.

There were even film and comedy tents if you just wanted to chill out and get away from the music.

Also there was a secret faraway forest where they heldd a masked ball on the Saturday evening.

Musically, one of the highlights on Friday was Laura Marlin - playing on the main stage, which here is called the Obsolete Stage.

She seemed to be very excited to be playing at Latitude, and it showed in her performance.

Wild Beasts played afterwards in the Sunrise Tent, and they put on a good show which created a fantastic vibe - with the crowd jumping around like Wild Beasts themselves!

The highlight of the first evening was Florence and The Machine, who put on an amazing show which captivated the crowd in a whirlwind of song and dance.

On Saturday by far the best band were The xx.

They put on an upbeat and downtempo show which had a mixture of dub step and soul.

I didn't know what type of live show we were going to get from these guys as the album is softer, but the set was like watching 'Insomnia' by Faithless.

Everyone was moving - with the tent transformed into a sea of bobbing heads.

Comedian and presenter Mark Lamar, meanwhile, was in the film tent putting on some good acts including great jazz, soul and funk.

Luckily, we were able to get in to see Aswad, which brought in some reggae and also caught the Gentleman's Dub Club who played on till the early hours and showed us some early styles of reggae.

After the bands finished you could still find entertainment throughout the festival.

So, if you wanted, you could go into the woods to have a dance until 3am, or even take a look at the 3D light show on the bridge at the lake - created by spraying water into the air and projecting lasers onto it.

It gave an amazing feel and presence, and definatly recieved our thumbs up! Overall, the festival was one the best organised events that we've had the pleasure of being able to attend (and we've been to A LOT of festivals - bothe in the UK and abroad).

And the great British weather did not even spoil it. So we were treated to silky, sunny blue skies.

We would not hesitate to go again next year.