With a heavy head and tired feet we drag our carcasses out for the final day. The excellent Great Escape app alerts us to a surprise outdoor gig outside of the Brighton library and we head here first.  

To our complete surprise it’s the massive talent of Rag 'N' Bone Man. And though announced very last minute, it pulls in a huge crowd and as it's outdoors in the baking sunshine, it is certainly a wonderful start. As he knocks out his hits the word gets around and by the end of his short set he has a huge audience. As the crowds fade away we stay to catch the brilliant songwriting talents of Vince James, whose honest, in-depth storytelling lyrics are bound to project this guy to bigger and brighter things.

Next up is Flamingods a five piece from Bahrain who are multi-instrumentalist consisting of drummers and guitarist. They show of their skills by swapping after each track.  There swirling Middle Eastern rhythms meet psychedelic guitars in a wonderful mixture of world sounds.  Continuing the world music theme we plump for Sarathy Korwar an Indian artist of traditional folk music who has just been signed to Ninja Tune. The blend of beats, folk and jazz are continuing to grow his reputation on the back of his new album which we highly recommend.

We pop across to Brighton marina to catch some more beats in the form of Blue Lab Beats. These two guys have produced and remixed many artists including the aforementioned Rag n Bone Man.  After gaining reputation as remixers they decided to go alone and breakout on their own to huge effect.  We march to catch The Parrots in the blazing sunshine and the hideous weather of previous days is now a distant memory. These Spanish indie rock and rollers are great fun and bring a wonderful energetic sound. We now have a short few hours break from the afternoon sessions until we attack our final night. We start off with the wonderful Daniel Wakeford. He gained fame via the Channel 4 tv show The Undateables. And now he’s a singer at the festival. He is simply wonderful and the huge outdoor crowd roar and scream their appreciation for a man whose warmth and love of music and performing is undeniably infectious. 

We feel we need a calming softer act to refuel so we plump for Julie Byrne, a country acoustic artist who transports us to a front porch of the deep south with her wonderful melodies of the mysterious of love. She is also a wonderfully talent guitarist and we are suitably calmed and relaxed. Ayia are an Icelandic electro pop three piece who serve up post-apocalyptic, intimidating, glichy, abstract dance music.

Jane Weaver is an intense artist that demands your immediate intention with her intense haunting voice that we were lucky to catch as she drew a huge crowd. Even bigger crowds come to see Baloji who comes highly recommend. He has so many talents from poetry to filmmaking and he wows us with a visual and sound display of epic proportions. There was a rumour of a secret gig in the same venue and to our absolute delight it’s the incredible John Grant. We are treated to very intimate performance and judging by the sheer size of the crowd it wasn’t that big a secret. He is such an intense and wonderful performer with a wonderful sense of humour. 

We race to catch a bit of Brighton’s own The Magic Gang with their lovely cross over sound. Relaxed indie yet a larger vocal presents is how we would describe them. We are running out of time so we plump for a final bit of urban in the form of Ryan De La Cruz. He is simply sensational with a wonderful crowd interaction and boundless energy. This is followed by the equally excellent Stefflon Don who loyal fan based packed out the venue. She finished with an impromptu stage invasion where half the audience join her.  Our Final act of the three days were Pom Poko from Norway a geeky four piece punk pop band who sum up the brilliance of this festival. Multi layers of genres throw together from acts all over the world who all come to celebrate the amazing thrill of live music.

Vantastival kicks off the festival season in Ireland this coming weekend. Now in its eighth year, the festival returns to Beaulieu House for two days of music over the bank holiday weekend. As usual, campervan passes are free and we’ll be livetweeting both days from the @musosguide account on Twitter. Tickets are still available from the festival website here.

Andy Smith (ex. Portishead), The Eskies, Fish Go Deep and Blood And Fire Sound System feat. MC Brother Culture are among the main acts at this year’s festival. London-based DJ Andy Smith made his name as Portishead’s international tour DJ and his sampling formed the basis of the band’s unique sound. Since the Portishead tours Andy has established himself as an underground producer of some of the most irresistible hip-hop breaks-based music around and has a strong cult following. He will close the woodland stage with a late night set on Saturday 3rd June.

The Eskies have been busy bringing their unique brand of folk noir/gypsy jazz/sea shanty and swaggering stage spectacle to venues across Europe over the past couple of years, and will have their first opportunity since 2013 to perform at Vantastival on Sunday night, 4th June.  Blood And Fire Sound System will also play on Sunday night, featuring original Rasta MC Brother Culture, while producer duo Fish Go Deep from Cork will headline BackwardS, a new late night area in the woods at Beaulieu, where DJs will keep revellers dancing till the very early hours.

Vantastival’s impressive line-up also includes The Riptide Movement, Overhead, The Albatross, Lankum (formerly Lynched), Kíla, New Secret Weapon, MINDRIOT, Cat Dowling and a host of other Irish names with the usual focus on up-and-coming unsigned acts. The Glasshouse Stage is another new addition to the site, an intimate acoustic experience featuring solo slots from singer-songwriters including Keith Plunkett, Grainne Hunt and Niall McGuigan (ex. Speedking) among others. Meanwhile Dun Laoghaire College of Further Education will bring back the popular DFEi Music Stage, run by students and featuring a line up of former and current DFEi students. With still more acts to be announced, this year’s festival will be a veritable feast for music fans.

And, of course, some of Musos’ Guide's favourites will play the Firestone Stage. Over the course of six weeks, competing against eleven other acts, Nix Moon have prevailed victorious at Firestone’s Battle of the Bands Competition. The final took on Thursday the 11th of May in Odd Mollies, Drogheda, where the band battled it out against four other acts. As well as headlining the Firestone stage at Vantastival, the prize consists of a €1,800 voucher for Musicmaker, Dublin, and three days recording time at world renowned Grouse Lodge Studios, Co. Westmeath. Joining them will be fellow finalists Grand, Makings, Accidents In The Workplace and Lowlight Ensemble, with Sun.Set.Ships, We, The Oceanographers, The Periods, Pine The Pilcrow and The Future West also popping up on our clashfinder.

Vantastival 2017 will take place on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th June at Beaulieu House & Gardens, Drogheda. Other attractions will include art installations, fire performances, drum circles, festival traders, an Alice in Wonderland-themed kids’ camp and much more. Vantastival has something for everyone, with or without a campervan. Weekend tickets are on sale now at €85 + booking fee for two nights camping. Day tickets cost €40.

More rain of biblical proportion greets us on the second day. In these desperate times we head for the comfort of the familiar. The wonderfully iconic Lauren Laverne is broadcasting live from the festival and we all huddle together like wet sheep.

Everyone is talking about what acts they saw the previous day. However the main chat is all about the Slaves who hosted a takeover party at the end of Brighton pier and as you would hope it was full on carnage. The show had to close early due to huge numbers and many people rushing and jumping over the barriers. By all accounts the boys didn’t fail to deliver and many an urban myth about what went on has already started to develop. 

Along with the main Great Escape festival is a host of offshoot musical events. The Alternative Escape hosted the brilliant Resonators last night while there are also loads of pubs who run events that don’t need tickets and are all completely free. Alongside all this there are various companies hosting events and we have just registered for the Soundcloud secret show. We have no idea who but then it wouldn’t be a secret would it.

We start with Dakota a three piece jangly female-fronted band with echoes of Warpaint which wets our appetite for the day ahead. Next, a truly strange location of the iconic i360 tower on Brighton seafront to catch an intimate gig courtesy of Dr. Martens with the beautiful voice of Cosima. This lady has a huge future  ahead, her stunning vocals, along with the setting, are perfect apart from the rain and really starts our day of well.  

From the beautiful to the downright weird. Delaney Davidson from New Zealand is a one man band who’s been described as Gothic Americana. Personally we think it was blues mixed with Captain Beefheart. He did a superb cover of ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ which was simply hypnotic, wonderful and bonkers. We want more craziness, maybe the weather is sending us mad. Luckily we have two ginger haired Belgian’s who pound out intense synth rock. La Jungle are just one of those act you just don’t get and can’t describe yet you don’t have to. A huge noise is made by these two guys and we lap it up, think Royal Blood with synths and you are kind of getting there.

The sun is out, we aren’t lying. We head to an outdoor stage and catch the singing songwriting talent that is Callum Beattie. As we are serenaded by his acoustic loveliness we can plan the next few acts and dry out. We plump for Kane Strang and a swirling beautiful low-fi psychedelic sound with echoes of Pixies which confirm this guy’s huge talent. We are then excited for one of our must see acts of the weekend Jay Som. Coming out of San Francisco and fronted by the amazing talents of Melina Duterte they serve up lashing of dreamy psychedelic guitars. You feel transported to a hazy summer's day and she is simple a wonderful artist that we can’t recommend enough.  

The late show for tonight, we focus on a few more upcoming urban and grime artists and we begin in the grand setting of Queens’s Hotel to see Koojey Radical. Swigging Redstripe and sweating he leaps about firing out fast flowing lyrics. Stripping off layers after each track he performs some wonderful stuff. It sums up one of the beauties of the Great Escape, underground artists in grand venues which are not used to putting on live acts. We switch to a club on the seafront to catch Grime of the highest order from Belly Squad, all decked out in matching Adidas tracksuits they bring a light-hearted approach, mixing up afro rhythms and afro-beats with a Caribbean vibe to knock out hits such as the wonderful ‘Banana’.

They're followed by Young T & Bugsey who are destined and touted as the next big urban act. Abra Cadabra is freshly following a MOBO award and we can see why. He is dedicated to his craft yet could have been a bit more aware of the crowd. Our final act are 67, a raw uncompromising group of rappers that have a huge following. This we feel is proper grime music without the filters. They are dangerous and we feel privileged and scared all in one. The crowd are bouncing like mad things and they deliver an intense, wonderful performance, with a leading figure wearing a mask either to hide his appearance due to his gang injunction or due to his ASBO. We don’t know but it only adds to the drama of the night and rounds off an intense yet amazing day.   

With another sell out festival and a huge line up the annual Great Escape just keeps getting better and better. With the added input from major sponsors and BBC 6 Music the importance to new artists and their exposure this event generates is massive. 

The best example of this is Rag 'N' Bone Man. Last year he was tucked away in a tiny club and 12 months later he is the major showcase attraction. The theme this year is defiantly a huge spotlight on the exploding UK grime and urban music scene. The sheer amount of artists is incredible and as with each year there are far too many to cover.

The urban grime theme is matched by the very grimy weather as it is absolutely chucking it down. However we plump for our first artist. He is Pierre Kwenders and covers a lot of bases. He is a Canadian/Congolese rap jazz artist and also easily the most beautiful man we have ever seen. He oozes cool and is the perfect showman with laid back rhythm and superb presents as he raps in five languages. Not a bad start at all. 

With the weather not abating we force our way onto Brighton seafront to catch some sun drenched dreamy pop. This seems to be the most inappropriate music possible due to the outside weather but we need to dry off. The noise makers are a New Zealand band Fazerdaze and draw similarities to Smashing Pumpkins. They certainly warm us up with a warm fuzzy slice of California inspired guitar hooks. Back into the now horizontal rain and we need our spirits lifted. Who better than The Goon Sax, an Australian trio who have a huge debut album behind them the place was packed. They are so uncool they are by definition, cool. Think Ian Dury meets Cardigans is my best attempt at their unique sound. More rain greets us but by now we decided it beats working and we run off to catch the pure song writing talents of Vince James.  

BBC 6 Music are running a live broadcast and we decide to plump ourselves here for a few hours until the night shows start up. We are honoured as the one and only Steve Lemacq fist bumped me. It also allowed us to catch a few acoustic acts and listen to some wonderful tunes as we dried our socks out over a speaker. 

Tonight we start with Psychedelic jazz from Bahrain’s own Flamingods. These guys were crazy and leap about the stage. Drawing influences and similarities to Goat they started the evening off well.  We continue our world music inspired evening with Ibibio Sound Machine a wonderful one woman West African electro disco funk machine. 

Now we enter fully the British Isles grime and urban music scene with Avelino. Looking like a version of Snoop Dogg. This guy is going to be huge and he conducted himself with a wonderful upbeat session. 

“Don’t show up to my show if you got no…. (energy) “

He preached a no bad energy vibe that cemented his future as the changing face of this ever changing genre. Finally the act that we all been waiting for Rejjie Snow. An Irish-based kid from Dublin managed to pack out a huge venue and judging by the queue alone could have filled it twice over. He did not disappoint, spitting some serious bars he had the place absolutely rocking.  He pumped out ‘Flexin’ and ‘Blakkst Skin’ with a wonderful female singer who the crowd lapped up. 

With limited access we finally tried to fit in one last act. Scanning what is around we had to plump for a band called Fuck Art, Let’s Dance. How could you not want to see an act calling themselves this? They are a German outfit whose main aim is to be very angry and very loud they are the perfect end to a wonderful first day.