Wireless 2012 (Day Three)

It’s the final day of Wireless festival 2012 and by God, does it look like Hyde Park has been through the wars. With entire areas of its once grassy park land cordoned off as newly formed muddy lakes, the ‘arena’ is shrinking in on itself, which is always handy really when you have a raucous rabble of revellers piling on top of each other to get a glimpse of anyone and everyone that might be going near a stage.

First on our agenda for the afternoon is Madeon, who packs out the Pepsi Max stage so much that we’re forced to stand back and watch him on a big screen. That’s ok though, we like TV just as much as the next person, and what we do see of the youngster’s set is bloody brilliant.

After a short time spent hiding out from one of the day’s many, many downpours, we trek our way through (what must definitely be) miles of mud to check out Theophilus London at the Barclay Card Unwind Tent, a battle that upon arrival, we wished we’d passed on. Delivering a less than impressive performance, Theophilius London greatly resembled a bunch of people just shouting each other’s names over some perfectly good pop hits. Let this be a lesson kids, don’t mess with the classics.

A hot dog and some chips later and we can just about face another round of space hoppers flying at, near or around our persons long enough to see Jessie J take to the main stage. Opening with a suitable amount of what we’re assured is ‘swagger’ for her performance of ‘Do It Like A Dude’, Jessie’s confidence seems to trail off throughout the short set, leaving her struggling somewhat over her lesser known album tracks. The crowd don’t seem to mind too much though, with most sticking around to see out her performance before stampeding over to where Calvin Harris is already spinning his hits.

Overcrowding is a real problem and with things getting a little less than pleasant, it’s not long before security have to involve themselves in what has by this point descended into a bit of a brawl. Avoiding any more incidents, we head back to the safety of the main stage, and standing well back, wait for the evening’s big attraction.

By the time Rihanna takes to her Egyptian themed stage, the heavens have opened. Make no mistake, she is definitely the Only Girl In The World that we’d be waiting around in this for but we aren’t half glad that we did. With a gasp-inducing Rated R performance, Rihanna delivers Rockstar 101: this, ladies and gentlemen, is how to close a festival, watch and learn. The single-stuffed set spans her six album career, with special nods towards her more recent ‘Talk That Talk’ and ‘Loud’, and including a rare performance of ‘You Da One’.

Unfortunately for Rihanna, it seems there’s little she can do to keep things under control, and with Hyde Park descending into that by now infamous hopeless place she’s always singing about, by the time we’re advised to ‘go hard or go home’ in her rendition of ‘Hard’, we have to opt for the latter. That’s quite enough mud-slinging for one day, thank you very much.