The lazy Sunday vibe is washing over a warmed up crowd at Hyde Park as they wait in anticipation of tonight’s headliner, musical maestro Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel fame). There’s an overtly different feeling in the air compared to last night’s Bruce Springsteen show, fans this evening are relaxed and calm as well as being of an over-all older age group and there’s something rather nice about it.

Opening with soft bluesy ‘Kodachrome’ to a round of appreciative but grown-up cheers and applause, Paul Simon steadily rides through the song in his so-laid-back-he’s-almost-horizontal way but the sound gets a little bit washed out in ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’. He is then joined on stage by “… a great hero of mine, Jimi Cliff” (sporting gold sequinned trainers no less!) who gives the reggae edge to the proceedings with ‘The Harder They Come’ and ‘Many Rivers To Cross’.

Moving on to Simon’s decisive African Township influenced ‘Graceland’, which caused quite a stir back in ’86, is tonight reverential, and is felt all over again as the formidable Ladysmith Black Mambazo take to the stage to do it justice. There’s no formal ceremony about this show, it’s unassuming but special, and the likes of ‘Homeless’ and ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’ seem to take the breath away from the awed onlookers.

When Hugo Masekela comes out for a spirited ‘Mandela’ as the sun shines down, people are warming up their dancing feet and with two encores featuring the likes of Simon & Garfunkel hit ‘The Sound of Silence’ and ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’, he rounds off the Sunday jam session with an easy casual manner. This was undoubtedly Paul Simon at his best, but it smacked of a quiet comedown for Hard Rock Calling rather than a sensational out-with-a-bang type of affair and the crowd definitely began to wane from around 9pm in favour of early tubes and soft beds.

There’s a reason 76 thousand people turned up to Hyde Park in this, the most miserable of summers, and that reason is the man, the legend, Bruce Springsteen. After a tense 30 minute wait (in which time we managed to sardine ourselves between a very jolly man yelling ‘Bruuuuuuuce’ at random intervals and an extremely short couple trying to swap saliva as if it were life-force) The Boss rocks up wearing his signature jeans and waistcoat combo with serious swagger and no pomp or fanfare whatsoever. This guy just commands attention on his own.

Dropping the lights to a single beam, Bruce breathes into the mic “This is the first song I played when my feet touched British soil” and opens with an absolutely epic acoustic rendition of super-hit ‘Thunder Road’ which honestly, nearly brought a tear to my eye. Straight into ‘Badlands’ and pushing on through ‘We Take Care of Our Own’ (plagued by a temporary fit of poor sound, which is overridden by the thousands of chorus voices) Springers already has us enthralled. ‘Wrecking Ball’ is punchy and the Bill & Ted style guitar wind-milling shows us that the 62 year old rocker is anything but past it. Bruce welcomes on stage friend Tom Morello (of Rage Against The Machine fame) “and his furniture” for ‘Death to My Hometown’ and ‘My City of Ruins’ heralded by sage words “It’s about the things that leave you, it’s about the things that never leave you, the things you remember for the rest of your life. This is for my old faces in the crowd.” Bruce walks off the stage and into the clamouring arms of his fans, even putting one lucky (?!) punter in a friendly headlock.

As Bruce sings a little thought along the lines of “Who’s in the house tonight? Are your legs hurting, and your ears hurting and your sexual organs… stimulated? It’s in the smallprint of your ticket…” he stands up against the crowd barrier with a security guard hanging onto the back of his pants for dear life, at serious risk of de-kegging the rockstar. Back up on the stage steps, he takes time for a little recline next to E Street saxophonist Jake Clemons as they duet, and are then joined by the great John Fogerty, who played the main stage previously.

A wavering sign in the crowd attracts the attention of Springsteen, a fan who has been following him around the world repeatedly requesting the little played song ‘Take Them As They Come’ gets his wish as Bruce shouts “Tonight you’re gonna hear this damn thing, It’s your song buddy”. As the skies begin to cloud over and darken, aptly named ‘Because The Night’ brings on a few drops of rain and an extreme case of tone-deaf karaoke from the girl a little way behind us. No dear, dogs in Hounslow can hear you, but Bruce can’t. Guitar slung nonchalantly across his back, bopping an inflatable Mr. Blobby back into the crowd, Bruce asks security guards to drag a small boy out onto the stage with him to sing ‘Waitin’ on a Sunny Day’ with him. That lad’s life has hit its peak, what else will ever be as good, I ask you? Following this lighthearted act, ‘The River’ sends the thousands strong throng into complete awed silence, the like of which is rarely witnessed in the music world, and there is something entirely mesmerising about his gravelly voice soaring out across the silhouetted faces of all these people.

Morello re-joins the group for ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ and blasts out a face-melting solo with insane harmonics, after which Bruce drops ‘Born In The USA’ and fan favourite ‘Born To Run’. ‘Glory Days’ sees Bruce and E Street’s Steve Van Zandt shaking their asses to the crowd at the top of the steps and the incredible ‘Dancing In The Dark’ is cue for Bruce to grab a young lady from the crowd and pick her up for a spot of dancing… er… in the dark. She may never marry after that!

Bruce needs no intermission, no encore, the man is a veritable machine. How many other musicians do you know who can pull a 3 hour set without a break, let alone one who’s been gigging for as long? To cap off an already celebratory show, who should turn up but pal and UK rock-legend Sir Paul McCartney. Yes that’s right, Sir Paul McCartney. This unbelievable occurrence  sees more than a few around me rubbing their eyes in astonishment as they do Beatles hit ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and a cover of The Isley Brothers’ ‘Twist and Shout’ before finishing up with a jumping cheese-tastic ‘La Bamba’.

Okay, so you might have already heard a fair amount of bitching about the plug-pulling incident, but here’s my take. It was only 5 minutes of La Bamba – funny but not great by any stretch of the imagination, it’s the song played by crap DJ’s at weddings, right? It’s a shame that Bruce didn’t get to say his goodbyes (heck, he didn’t even know the sound was off for a while) but the man gave us unadulterated power and polished rock n roll for over 3 outstanding hours. Despite various celebs tweeting about the ‘incident’ (even Boris Johnson weighed in) this shouldn’t be the final word on what was otherwise an utterly astounding set. Springsteen has one hundred percent earned his title of The Boss and this is just a tidbit of news on the back of one of the best shows ever to grace Hyde Park.

A damp day in London’s Hyde Park and a subdued, sparse crowd awaits 90’s grunge titans Soundgarden. It’s not the best of situations but Chris Cornell’s obvious nonchalance as he walks on stage to a fanfare of grimy amp feedback, seems to please the avid fans at the front (cue girls screaming). With an intro like ‘Searching With My Good Eye Closed’ it’s clear they intend to roll out the hits tonight, in their two hour headline set, and follow up ‘Spoonman’ is hurt either by dodgy sound quality or an un-warmed vocaliser a la Cornell, it’s hard to tell.

Luckily, the further into the set we get the better. As clearer vox on ‘Jesus Christ Pose’ and chart hit ‘Black Hole Sun’ start to warm up the crowd, Cornell laments on the 15 year hiatus and proclaims that they’re “Happy to be back”. Despite the joyful sentiment, the weather has other plans and chucks buckets on the already soggy scene, and despite the very public notices about an arena umbrella ban, up go the multicoloured domes to shelter the London crowd. Two drenched hippies in a state of distress (and miss-dress, they were wearing an extraordinary collection of woven garments which must have sucked up ALL the rain) stagger past holding each other up and screaming “I don’t know what you’re saying” over ‘Let Me Down’ and ‘Pretty Noose’. The melancholy sentiment now matches that of the dwindling crowd.

Something about an event in the heart of London seems to breed a disinterested attitude towards outdoor music, a guy next to us said that five of his friends who bought tickets today, didn’t bother to come because of weather forecasts. It’s easy to ditch and hop on a tube home here, unlike a normal camping festival and people seem to be embracing it, as Soundgarden move through to their more self indulgent numbers. ‘Super Unknown’ is a glistening gem in this moody close but encore track ‘Rusty Cage’ is met with indifference from the majority of listeners as they spend an age playing around with their pedals and messing about with feedback and resonance. The sight of these grown men standing resolutely holding their guitars up to amps like some teenage garage band, is a little funny to tell the truth. There’s a fine line between cool and cock, and this definitely crosses it. Soundgarden put on a good show, but not an epic one, and possibly weren’t the best fit for this festival, however – die-hard ‘garden fans got exactly what they came for.

Photo courtesy of Hard Rock Calling.