After their intimate ballroom blitz in south London on Tuesday, the White Stripes became London's main attraction when they commandeered Hyde Park for a triumphant show last night.

Even Marble Arch glowed red and white in tribute to the Detroit duo's continuing status as more than likely the best live band on the planet.

This brief week of appearances in the UK, which also included an unlikely acoustic performance for 20 Chelsea Pensioners at the Royal Hospital, is Jack and Meg White's only promotional push for their sixth album, Icky Thump.

They barely even performed any new songs from the new album here, but even so it will surely be number one on Sunday.

With the big screens displaying the action strictly in the band's two-tone colour scheme, they managed to transcend the largely uninspiring surroundings of the Wireless festival, where tacky fairground rides and certain branded marquees encroached too noisily on the main space.

The annual long weekend's strength, thankfully, is in an impressive line-up of bands every day until Sunday.

Yesterday Sweden's Sounds livened things up early on with some energetic electropop, while calming Air hypnotised the occupants of an adjacent tent and a gloriously unhinged Queens of the Stone Age noisily paved the way for the headliners.

Changing the set almost completely from Tuesday's at the Rivoli Ballroom, the White Stripes romped around their extensive back catalogue with barely a pause.

Icky Thump was not the focus because this band would never perform just to sell a new record.

Even from this distance, Jack and Meg seemed to inhabit the songs, shifting intuitively between whatever tracks simply felt right.

Jack pounded a weighty organ between riffs during new song I'm Slowly Turning Into You, but really focused on the raw genius of his guitar work.

I Think I Smell a Rat was frighteningly savage, his slide guitar on a cover of Son House's Death Letter as overwhelming as ever.

Meg drummed throughout with poised dignity in stark contrast to the maelstrom surrounding her.

Few musical unions work as naturally as this one. This four-day festival has hit its high point already.