Have confirmed that I’ll be DJ-ing once more at this year’s Latitude Festival. The festival runs from the 17th to 20th July, and I’ll be spinning the usual showtunes and vintage pop in the Cabaret Arena, though the slots are briefer than last year. Once again, it’ll be me and Miss Red, appearing as The Beautiful & Damned DJs.

This time, however, I’m going to do the festival thing properly and bring a tent. Ms S thinks this is hilarious. I’ve just bought a cheap little number that came recommended by a Daily Telegraph article on ‘glamping’. This is an alleged new trend: glamourous camping for monied types. Prada groundsheets, Gucci guy ropes, that kind of thing. Well, my take on ‘glamping’ is more low budget, but at least I’ll be pitched in a glamourous space – backstage with all the other Cabaret Arena types.

Can’t remember the last time I did go camping, in fact. Possibly the Reading Festival 1990, at the age of 18. The bands playing then included the Pixies, the Wedding Present, Nick Cave, Mega City Four, the Senseless Things, and the aforementioned Inspiral Carpets, who were the biggest act on one of the nights. Many of these groups have since split, then reformed, then split again. Actually, even in 1990 there already was a reformed band playing – The Buzzcocks, with The Smiths’ Mike Joyce on drums. And I think Wire were in their second time around. Not being new is not a new thing.

My abiding memory is finding out the hard way just how pointless it is lurking down the front by the main stage all day, purely to secure the best view of the big acts later on. But I had to try it for myself first.

In order to be close to the Wedding Present (second from last), I installed myself right against the metal crowd barrier, dead centre, rushing to secure this position at about 1pm, as soon as the arena gates opened. I didn’t mind going without food all afternoon, and cups of water were always to hand, obligingly handed out by stewards in the photographer’s pit, that sliver of calm between barrier and stage.

John Peel was DJ-ing in between the acts, which rather helped. I remember him playing the Popguns b-side ‘Because He Wanted To’, fairly early on in the day. Hearing this catchy and fuzzy little indiepop tune, a favourite of mine, was a treat. It felt like private music imposed upon thousands, when only two years earlier Reading was more of a heavy metal festival. This very un-rocking pop song was now ringing out on the gigantic Main Stage speakers, previously accustomed to the likes of Whitesnake, Saxon and Magnum. For a few minutes, the meek could indeed inherit the world, with a help from Mr Peel.

I then stood and watched the coming and going of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin (quite fun), Psychic TV (no tunes), Wire (past their best, looked bored), The Young Gods (baffling, one of those bands other people like), Ride (okay, if looking amusingly out of place in the bright afternoon sunshine), and Billy Bragg (great as ever).

As the hours passed, the crush down the front became more frightening than I’d envisaged. I was even afraid real damage might be done to my ribs. By the time the Buzzcocks came on, the pressure of so many bodies behind me and to either side was impossible to take any longer. I didn’t want to be one of those archetypal forlorn youths down the front that had to be dragged out by security men. As much as I loved the Wedding Present back then, I didn’t think they were worth suffering actual physical agony for (insert your own jokes about their records here, non-fans).

‘This is really no way to see a band,’ I remember thinking. ‘Even though all these other young people down the front think it is. Once again, I know I am not like other young people.’

So halfway through the Buzzcocks I yielded my prized place at the barrier and started to move back to a more bearable area of crowd density. I didn’t stop walking – or rather, squeezing past muttering a million ‘scuse me’s -till I felt I could move my arms freely again. When the Wedding Present finally took to the stage, I was right at the back of the crowd. It’d been a waste of time. Well, no, it’d been a lesson learned.

I still approve of the serendipitous side of music festivals, where you can wander around and discover new favourite bands. With its emphasis on a varied diet of stages, I feel Latitude does this side of things particularly well. It’s the feral crowd side of rock festivals I’m not keen on – the mud, the sweat, the packed-in numbers down the front.

One of the headliners at Latitude this year is Franz Ferdinand, who I last saw upstairs at the Barfly, supporting the Futureheads. Back then, they turned up on my Highgate doorstep and asked to borrow my Juno 6 synthesizer. The Barfly wasn’t thinly attended – these were two bands with ‘industry buzz’ after all – but neither was it packed. These days, Franz Ferdinand are a bigger deal, of course.

So next month they’ll doubtlessly be playing to a crowd of thousands, with 18-year-olds down the front, but I do wonder if these teens will be suffering to quite the same degree I did at their age, or whether the civilised feel of Latitude means it’ll be more like the Tube at rush hour – packed in, but not to the extent of actual pain.

Also, these days the Net and mobile phone culture has meant there’s so much more to do than watching bands, and I’d have thought that would affect the pain level of the moshpit. Or does it connect with a Lord Of The Flies-style, atavistic teen aggression, something I’ve never felt? That fearing for your rib cage is part of the fun, and will always be the case? With all the downloading, all the Internetting, all the iPodding, all the digital surfeit of choice, could it be that this particular trial of life remains utterly unchanged?

Well, I’m not going down the front to find out.