Wireless Festival
Hyde Park, London
03/07/2010

With concert behemoth Live Nation behind it, there’s no excuse for this annual central London shindig to be anything but wicked, and Wireless’ Saturday is this year’s pick, pegged as the ‘cool’ bill from the three vaguely-defined all-dayers.

Though maybe not-quite on the scale of last year’s Blur shows, there is an unfortunate but unavoidable appeal to arseholes for whom this is one of four gigs they’ll attend all year – V Festival plus Kings Of Leon, or Kasabian and Faithless or The Prodigy at somewhere hateful like Milton Keynes Bowl likely to be the others. But that’s an inescapable by-product of the cross-genre programme, and barely detracts from a day of great live sets and brilliant sunshine.

While early performances by drum and bassers Sub Focus, Benga and Skream‘s dubstep crossover project Magnetic Man and new Warp signings The Hundred In The Hands warrant attention and mention, the party really gets started with what turns out to be the overall highlight – a triumphant, euphoric set from Snoop Dogg. Here’s a man on the cusp of legend status, and who has self-awareness that gazumps any tedious qualms about his message or moral stance. See, Snoop knows he’s a walking stereotype – partly of course because he virtually created that stereotype – and he milks it knowingly to the max. From his ludicrously OTT intro video to the mic he holds, and from his stage show (massive bodyguards, hot Latin American dancers) to the instructions to the band (“Give me some of that muthafuckin’ pimp music”) and rhetorical questions to the audience (“Anybody here got love for the West Coast?”), it’s impossible not to smile broadly for the duration. Any disapproving voices would be futile, as there’s never any excuse for taking anyone any more seriously than they take themselves, and Snoop’s fifty-minute early evening set is perfect in every way.

Belgium’s Soulwax adopt their 2manydjs guise for a storming set of party electro pop, totally justifying their rep as the best in the business and taking the baton from Snoop by keeping the crowd moving for a relentless mash-up that clocks in just shy of two hours. Over on the second stage it’s a rare set from DJ Shadow, throwing out immaculate instrumental hip hop from the peerless ‘Private Press’ and ‘Endtroducing’ and setting the mood for the climax to the day. Though there’s not a great amount to see, Shadow’s tunes are always welcome, and his hour passes in a blink.

Headlining, it’s the outgoing LCD Soundsystem, promoting third album ‘This Is Happening’ before James Murphy retires the name – and doing so perhaps at the right time amidst suggestions of them being a tad one-trick, albeit a pretty good one.

But all that matters tonight is that they deliver the party set the masses demand, and such criticism is rendered redundant with a simply magnificent show; where every track feels like it was a single and with it all delivered with style and conviction by Murphy. He’s even got the gumption to take umbrage with some trolleyed ne’er do well, as if to say that no-one’s going to ruin this perfect moment for him or the crowd.

In all it’s a wonderful ending to a brilliant day, one which confirms the importance of the Wireless shows in the festival calendar.

Andy Slocombe