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P!nk brings her Funhouse show to Hyde Park

A massive box hovers 50 feet in the air, and a huge cannon is aimed up from the stage pointing ominously at it. It fires a cloud of smoke, and P!nk ‘flys’ down from it screaming ‘London!’, and goes straight in to Get The Party Started. What an entrance!

Yes, P!nk’s circus has arrived in town, and it’s come complete with a Wurlitzer, slides, a circus promenade and all the bells and whistles we’ve been promised in the build up to this headline performance.

P!nk then goes in to Funhouse, then a lively Ave Mary A. It’s an ecstatic start to the set.

Scantily clad in a figure-hugging micro dress and a cheeky red garter, P!nk looks incredible, and sounds even better. Her live band effortlessly churn out hit after hit, as dancers dressed in all sorts of costumes from oriental circus performers to goth rockers parade around the stage.

“Holy s**t, there’s a lot of people here tonight” she says, before saying “thank you” at least 20 times. “This is a dream – we’re the first bitches to ever headline Hyde Park!” You certainly won’t be the last…

Who Knew is a true rock anthem, and is greeted with a raucous cheer. Bad Influence comes with all the polish and shine that we’ll come to expect tonight. For Just Like A Pill, P!nk lays on the Wurlitzer, then springs up, hopping across the stage. Not a single person doesn’t sing along on the chorus.

For the more sombre Please Don’t Leave Me, P!nk slowly walks across the stage with mic in hand, embracing her guitar player. Then she makes her way down to the crowd and is virtually mobbed by a sea of hands.

“You guys smell better than I do,” she admits, obviously having no problem getting up close and personal with the Wireless mob. If you say so, P!nk!

Tonight’s show really does sounds as good as it looks, and it’s incredible to hear P!nk’s catalogue of rock-pop anthems blasted out with a full live band, which comes full with a cornucopia of face-melting guitar solos on heavier numbers like I’m Not Dead and Unwind.

Throughout the set, P!nk loses more and more of the costume, and damn, she is looking good. When we spoke to her in London back in December she said that she had enjoyed going running in this very park, and clearly her vigorous exercise regime is doing the trick.

Eva and Dan from the band join P!nk for an acoustic rendition of I Dont Believe You, where the rock-pop princess also wields an acoustic guitar of her own. It’s raw, stripped back and full of emotion.

“My favourite thing to do at a festival is cry,” she tells us, and this is one moment that gets us feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. A beautiful contrast to the chaotic goings on of the rest of the show so far.

The acoustic interlude continues with a campfire sing-along rendition of Dear Mr President, a piercing number that features P!nk’s backing singers in perfect three-part harmony. It’s blissful.

After this, it’s back to business as usual, and P!nk welcomes on her life-long “songwriting buddy” Butch Walker on to stage, who some of you would have seen playing a set of his own over on the Third Stage earlier on in the day.

The two rock out to Mean, as a video of two kids playing football is shown in the background. Awww…

Then it’s time for a medley between the two, which includes The Who’s My Generation and Green Day’s Basket Case, as well as a killer version of Sting and the Police’s Roxanne.

One of the highlights of the set is when P!nk jumps in to a huge inflatable dome and surfs the crowd from one side of the Arena to the other. It’s incredible!

“Wow, I have so much more respect for hamsters now” she says when she finally makes her way back on to stage.

“Let’s have a singalong,” says P!nk, as the band break in to their next cover, 4 Non Blondes‘ What’s Going On. She plucks a nervous looking girl called Natasha out of the crowd to sing it, and she goes from a shaking wreck into full blown diva, absolutely nailing the chorus! Nice one Natasha!

Then it’s time for another singalong, but this one is a P!nk track in the form of You And Your Hand. This is followed by a rousing rendition of Leave Me Alone, which slowly winds down, and one by one P!nk’s band leave the stage.

But it’s not over just yet…

For an encore, the stage comes alive with colour and lights, and P!nk explodes back in front of the Wireless crowd for a stonking rendition of So What, straps herself into a harness and flys across the Arena. There’s pyros, smoke and fire, all of which do exactly what they’re intended for – sending the crowd absolutely insane.

It’s the perfect end to one of the most theatrical shows London Town has ever seen. P!nk was spectacular tonight, in every sense of the world. Tonight’s performance will stay with us. For a long time.

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