Pulp Tear Into "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E", pic: Louise Roberts

Despite high profile performances in Paris, Barcelona, on the Isle Of Wight and of course that five star secret set at Glastonbury, this was Pulp’s real comeback, the main event and the homecoming. As Jarvis wryly observed midway through tonight’s headline set, this show at London’s daunting Hyde Park was the first date announced on Pulp’s surprisingly vital comeback tour.

Gathered in front of the Main Stage were 40,000 Pulp fans, an audience who chose to travel across the country and across Europe the second Pulp’s name flashed upon Wireless Festival’s painful tacky website.

So naturally failure wasn’t a possibility, the crowd simple wouldn’t allow it as they belted out every line of “Do You Remember The First Time?” drowning out Jarvis Cocker and making the iconic opening line “So You’ve Got To Go Home” entirely inaudible.

While victory may have been achieved simply by turning up on time and playing for an hour, this was no nostalgic victory lap, Pulp appeared reinvigorated and seemed set on topping their spectacular Isle Of Wight return. “Do You Remember The First Time” was propulsively beefed up, “Mis-Shapes” re-emerged in the setlist unleashing the repressed angst of quiet intellectuals everywhere while “Sorted For E’s And Whizz” was transformed in to a buyout and strangely pertinent anthem fit to rival the finest sing-a-longs that Damon Albarn and Blur treated this park to just two year’s ago.

“F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E”, “This Is Hardcore” and a resplendent rendition of “Sunrise”, which saw the stage bathed in luminous yellow smoke and lasers, gave the show a feeling of high drama married to an impeccable awkward sense of sexual awakening.

Jarvis spelled out the importance of the nation’s capital to Pulp, explaining how the collision of cultures between Sheffield and the East End inspired the dishwater depravity of Pulp’s most touching tales, including the riotous set closer “Common People”.

Part of what made tonight’s headline set so special was not the strength of the material, but the intimate connections that Jarvis’ lyricism made with individual members of the audience. Every track was faithful sung back to band, but you could see the deeply personal connections shine through as pockets of fans exploded with an earnest added level of enthusiasm for track’s like “Babies”, “Bar Italia” and “Underwear”.

The unifying moment and undoubted set highlight came in the form of the reflective “Something Changed” whose piercing strings soared as Jarvis’ led the audience in swooning verse. Surveying 40,000 awestruck faces at the tracks conclusion it was clear that their lives and their entire appreciation of music could have been radically different if they and Pulp had never crossed paths. [5.0/5.0]

Elsewhere On The Bill:

Foals filled the Pepsi Max tent to capacity for an enthralling headline set that saw the crowd equally engaged by the beautifully understated “Spanish Sahara” as they were by lightweight hop along anthem “Cassius”. The real show stealing moments, however,  fell somewhere in between, as on the stirring “Red Socks Pugie” [4.0/5.0]

On the Main Stage Grace Jones did what she does best, dazzling a bemused audience with an array of dancers and crazy enthusiasm topped off by a barmily brilliant reading of “Pull Up To The Bumper”. [3.5/5.0]

Taylor Monson was in surprisingly tame, and thankfully mature form when she took to the Pepsi Max tent, her audience was respectful, but she only managed to connect to a large proportion of teenage shrieking girls, leaving the older viewers cold. The music was indebted, the sentiments hallow, but it was hard to dismiss radio friendly hits “Miss Nothing” and “Make Me Wanna Die” even if “Just Tonight” and “My Medicine” failed to ignite the kind of sing-alongs The Pretty Reckless’s lead singer was anticipating. [2.5/5.0]

TV On The Radio [3.0/5.0] faired little better on the main stage, as their bluster and enthusiasm was lost on an apathetic crowd who seemed burned out after a blistering set by The Hives. The Swedish Stooges revivalists may have failed to mature into an interesting musical proposition but they certainly haven’t lost any of their trademark charisma or live potency. “Hate To Say I Told You So”, “Tick Tick Tick Boom” and “Main Offender” got the circle pits going in earnest while lead singer Pelle Almqvist’s inane banter and stage antics kept the crowd entertained throughout the band’s less well known offerings. [3.5/5.0]

Despite sounding sharper than ever The Horrors simply shouldn’t play out doors in the blazing sunlight, and while their carefully textured sawing guitar odysseys were terse they failed to inspire an early morning crowd tired of long entry queues. [3.0/5.0]

Saturday saw pop superstar Ke$ha take to the stage in front of a surprisingly thin audience. While “We R Who We R” and “Cannibal” prove hard to resist, her shock pop, Alice Cooper antics play better in sweaty sordid clubs than they do on sunny Saturday afternoon. Still after a slow start “Tik Tok” did enough to win the day and avert a stilted disaster. Right act, wrong location. [2.5/5.0]

Katy B had no such problem, holding a large crowd in the palm of her hand as she triumphed with her post-dub step 2011 refit of Lily Allen’s “Knock Me Out” “Easy Please Me” which deftly mixes spunky attitude with infectious hooks. Despite a surprisingly lack of bass and the staggering omission of “Katy On A Mission”, the retro-pop of “Movement”, the ruminating “Louder” and a celebratory rendition of “Lights On”, unsurprisingly had the crowd raving it in the blistering sunlight. [3.5/5.0]

Opening the main stage at Wireless Festival is an uneviable task, the majority of festival audience don’t turn up until 8pm and those who do turf up ontime tend to favour sunbathing. Janelle Monae was not phased however, as she ripped through her chorographed insanity and had the crowd dancing, jumping and singing to a medley of hits including “Faster”, “Tightrope”, an earth shattering “Cold War” and an astute cover of The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”. Despite the early start Janelle still got the entire crowd to sit down and spring into life during her well established groove driven finale “…(War Of The Roses)”. [4.0/5.0]