Justin Timberlake, Yahoo! Wireless Festival, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London

Ah, the Olympic Park. It’s a funny sort of ghost town nowadays. The eerie vacancy of it all is such that as we’re being guided through the rabbit-warren maze from Stratford underground station to the Yahoo! Wireless site, I stop my friend mid-sentence. “Listen! Why is everybody so quiet?” Seems I’m not the only one taken aback. Still, the location has its perks. Where else in the capital would you find acres of space where the audience has the luxury of Astroturf underfoot? The site might not be as central as the festival’s old home in Hyde Park, but there’s certainly no shortage of new, unsullied space out here.

Today, that space is quickly filled. First, by a set from John Legend - the now veteran R&B star splitting his time as a piano-man and standalone singer with ease, and drawing rapturous responses from the audience with the likes of ‘Green Light’ and ‘Ordinary People.’ (Later, there’s a lovely little setlist-ordering touch—don’t think Legend doesn’t know what he’s doing when he follows new track ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’ with ‘Ordinary People’ (“we just ordinary people,” answers the subsequent song’s chorus)).

A little later, Snoop Dogg takes the stage - the 41-year-old is even more mumbling and nonsensical than you might expect—but that doesn’t seem to stop the crowd from lapping up the likes of ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ and ‘Beautiful.’ Reggae plays a pivotal role throughout the set - even to the point that following his, err, closing remarks (“SMOKE WEED MOTHERFUCKERS!” ), the rapper leaves the stage to the sounds of Bob Marley’s ‘Jammin’’. Despite being billed in his canine incarnation, it seems Snoop Lion’s still an ever present threat. Elsewhere throughout the day, Frank Ocean - fresh from writing another open-letter for his Tumblr readers - plays a headlining slot over at the Pepsi Max Stage, fast-rising Australian beat-maker Flume heads up the SBTV Stage, while Ke$ha, Miguel and Trey Songz all help keep the Main Stage alive.

But despite this array of supporting acts, when it comes down to it, this is still Justin Timberlake’s show. Taking the stage with a downright army of supporting musicians (a brass section, legions of backing singers, two drummers), Timberlake hardly falters over the course of his 100-minute set.

Tonight, there’s a sense that some of those ‘Justified’-era songs act as communal binding energy throughout the crowd. Even those for whom the festival maybe isn’t a regular stomping ground don’t seem to care when Timberlake’s tearing his way through ‘Senorita.’ What’s more, these songs aren’t just facsimiles of their recorded originals. Throughout the set, there’s extended intros, outros and solos, references to both Kanye and Jay-Z’s ‘N***** in Paris’ and Jucy J’s ‘Bandz A Make Her Dance’ built into ‘Cry Me A River’, and a performance of ‘Take Back The Night,’ the first track (as Timberlake himself puts it: “brand, spankin’ NEW!”) to be lifted from ‘The 20/20 Experience Pt. II’. Even Jay-Z turns up for his verse on ‘Suit & Tie,’ for Christ’s sake.

As ever, the Wireless Festival does what it sets out to do - cater to the masses. And while that might mean some filler throughout the day, that doesn’t matter when you’ve got this headliner.