The Big Weekend at Manchester Pride this year is surreal, boasting some amazing acts

An annual get together, to celebrate gay pride, one of the longest running Pride events in the UK attracting thousands upon thousands of visitors each year. This year is its 21^st year believe it or not!!

Festivities take place well before festival weekend, which includes 'Pride Fringe', which comprises of events all over the city such as quizzes, film showings, poetry readings, comedy and community activities etc., climaxing with 'The Big Weekend' which is a 72 hour party, usually over August bank holiday weekend, and this year is no exception.

Pride Fringe saw Chamber music concerts, The Pansy Project, Metrolink Sessions: The Jam on the Tram; Great Village Bake Off; Cockadoodle; Voices and Lyrics; The Naked Harpist; as well as talks such as 'Coming Out' – from script to screen. You get the drift, the Pride timetable is immense.

Within the festival, it's not just one weekend and you'd be silly to assume it is. It starts off with Fringe and ends up with the Big Weekend, which is really a month of events in its entirety, but that's not including Supersonic and Idahot who run events in April and May of the festival year.

Big Weekend is the explosion at the end, which contains The Parade and The Candlelit Vigil which are big parts of the weekend's festivities.

The Parade usually starts on the Saturday around lunch time, and this year is no exception kicking off from Liverpool Road, down Deansgate, John Dalton Street, Albert Square, Princess Street and finishing at the end of Whitworth Street. The parade theme this year is Love, especially as it is the year of equal marriage.

The Parade is usually started by someone who is kick ass in the gay community, in previous years the likes of Sir Ian Mckellen have done the deed as Parade Marshal. This year is the turn of Lea Delaria, if you watch cult Netflix series Orange is the New Black you'll know who I mean, its 'Big Boo'!!. Don't be afraid!!

The Candlelit Vigil is usually held on the Bank Holiday Monday of the Big Weekend, it's the culmination of the weekend and is held at George House Trust in Sackville Gardens, it's turned in to a sea of flickering light, immense to see, it's held to remember those who have been lost to the HIV virus and joins everyone together to fight the epidemic worldwide.

The Big Weekend this year is surreal, boasting some amazing acts, the main arena at Sackville Gardens will see performances from the Sexy Diva that is Anastacia headlining on Friday night, Pixie Lott headlining on Saturday evening and hottiesAll Saints headlining on Sunday evening, with some other marvellous acts such as the very talented Foxes, newbies Neon Jungle and Lip Services 'Hot Cop', Heather Peace providing supporting slots in their own right.

There are three stages providing music and different events throughout the weekend, it's a rollercoaster ride of entertainment, so hold on to your hats.

Originally we were only gonna attend Pride the Saturday and Sunday, but this plan changed when I found out Anastacia was playing on the Friday night, I'm sorry, it's a no brainer, we had to go, I've been a long time fan of hers, and yes she is seriously hot, she's a bit like marmite, you either love her, as I do, or your not very keen, which is my partners view. This women can belt out a tune and is the only vocalist apart from Adele to make me cry at a live show, very embarrassing I know.

I have listened to Anastacia's new album with a smile from ear to ear, 'Resurrection', is her back at her best, both lyrically and vocally. I have been previously disappointed with her last two offerings on the album front, BUT this album is frigging amazing. When you sell 30 million records you've gotta be something serious, and this women is, for sure.

Coming on stage at 22.10 hours, after a wait of 70 mins, she was looking seriously hot and sexy as always, Coming on stage with a full length dress and furry coat, it was freezing. Anastacia kicked off festivities with her new single 'Staring at the Sun', the dance mix though, it was quite difficult to hear her at times due to a technical hitch with her mic, we managed to hear the last third of the song. Can I just say hear Anastacia received quite a few hate tweets the day after accusing her of lyp syncing, I thought this was bloody ridiculous! I was stood right at the front stage right, it was definitely a technical hiccup.

The disappointing thing was we only had five songs from the diva, I was a bit gutted to be honest, but we were treated to an Acapella version of 'Deeper Love', which was immense and fan favourites 'Left Outside Alone' and 'I'm Outta Love', but the best was definitely last! Another acapella version of an Anastacia classic 'Paid my Dues'. I was as happy as a sandboy, glad we made the journey and the effort to get here, although the five hour traffic chaos wasn't so enjoyable.

Tonight's line up was no match for the ballsey Yank in all honesty, no-one can match the vocal talents of Anastacia. New Muso band Neon Jungle helped pave the way for Anastacia, they've had a good grounding by supporting Jessie J on tour, and their tracks 'Trouble' and 'Braveheart' will mesmerise everyone no doubt.

Saturday saw a weaker line up to be honest, kicking things off with Big Brovaz, Booty Luv, Rowetta, Syron, Kimberly Wyatt, and Mnek. I haven't heard of half of these acts., Obviously the stand out acts for me are Big Brovaz who have been around for a few years and as I thought had disappeared in to obscurity, they had classics live tunes such as 'Nu Flow' and 'FavouriteThings'; You know who I'm talking about. Obviously the other act that caught my eye tonight is ex Pussycat Doll  Kimberly Wyatt, famous for being a judge on 'Got to Dance', she's one helluva mover, but can she cut it as a vocalist, we'll see wont we? No we wont lol, as she was Dj'ing, very strange to me, but I guess quite entertaining.

A strange choice of headliner for Saturday's entertainment: Pixie Lott: My partner and I both saw her at her first festival when she was a spotty teenager, it was V Fest at Weston Park, she has come on leaps and bounds since then.

Her recent offering album-wise is 'Lay me Down'. I'm sure I had read that she had been dropped from her record label and was concentrating on acting, may be I'm wrong??!!

Following on from her stunning performance at this years V festivals Pixie wowed the audience at Pride and topped the day off.

Sunday's line up was again full to the brim, with a few gems along the way, namely Foxes and All Saints.

One of the interesting acts to say the least would be Eurovision winner 2014 Conchita, the bearded lady.

Sunday's Headliner All Saints, would've been more at home on the same stage as Anastacia, I find it quite odd the line up for weekend, Anastacia is surely the showstopper by far, so I don't understand why she wasn't headlining on Saturday evening. Nonetheless, Sunday saw 90's group All Saints headline.

Having quite a strong back catalogue which includes class 'Pure Shores', 'Never Ever', 'Under the Bridge' and 'Black Coffee' and who only just reformed this year to provide support for US band Backstreet Boys (Men actually!).

I did actually see All Saints at their peak, ashamedly at Wembley Arena, I won a competition for my sister and as part of that you got to meet the band, she was ecstatic, but sadly no photos. They were amazing live, so I wanted to see how that memory faired with tonight's performance.

Foxes, Louisa Allen, 22 years old, is quite new on the Muso scene. I saw her live earlier in the year at Wireless Festival, she has an amazing voice and her album is to die for 'Glorious', with so many mesmerising songs. With celebrity fans such as Katy Perry and Peter Wentz from Fall Out Boy you cant go wrong, watch this space.

Heather Peace , the 'hot cop' from Lip Service, who is an actress and Muso combined has been around for donkey's years, I can even remember thinking she was kinda hot in London's Burning and Ultimate Force, even hotter when she was on the cover of Diva Magazine J. She is very talented, even much so, she has accrued a vast army of fans from all over the world. With three sell out UK tours with a full band and four sell out acoustic tours and supporting the likes of Rebecca Ferguson, Deacon Blue and Alison Moyet, the music speaks for its self.

Ms Peace is a patron of Diversity Role Models and Manchester Pride and a campaigner for LGBT Rights, so its no wonder she graces the stage tonight. I'm sure there'll be the same HP fans at the front as there always is, you know the HP ever faithful fans!

Let's see what the set brings tonight??Little gems from her two studio albums I'm sure.

We went home on Sunday evening as the forecast for Monday was torrential rain;

Thank god we did to be honest as it was like an episode of X-Factor, with four ex-contestants appearing on the bill: Marcus Collins, Misha B, Lucy Spraggan and Amelia Lilly, unfortunately (as mentioned above) we didn't stay around to watch any of this as we needed time to recoup from the partying of the whole weekend and basically because we're both two old farts, when you get to over forty, well me anyways you need time to rest J.

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