Africa Oyé @ Sefton Park, Liverpool, 22-23 Jun

After last year’s washout, Liverpool’s free, weekend-long celebration of all things African returned to Sefton Park at the end of June, with the month's questionable weather deterring no one. The festival’s growth over the past decade has been enormous and unrelenting, and this year the crescent of clothes stalls, food shacks and activity tents that arc around the main stage area takes 15 minutes to walk around. It’s a party, and it’s a big one.

ZongZing Allstars kick off proceedings with a set of Congolese soukous that’s as bright and fun as their name implies. Taking their party-starting role very seriously, they lead the audience in Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, and organise an on-stage dance-off. The gregarious mood of the weekend is settled.

Son Yambu present son cubano, the Afro-Cuban sound, which reflects the international and multicultural ethos of the festival as a whole. With singer Yuri clad in a pink hoodie hurriedly shoved over a leopard-print dress to deter the drizzle, they get the crowd moving with a Cuban adaptation of I Will Survive. Later, Afro-pop giants Osibisa close Saturday’s business. Everyone has heard Osibisa, whether they know it or not, and as they triumphantly ease into their showpiece tune Sunshine Day, everybody realises why they sounded so familiar.

Day two, and the wild winds blow. It takes the truly determined to turn up at the start, dressed in preparation for the dreadful weather forecast. Later on, stalls on the downwind side of the park disappear one by one, the gusts helping them to make a speedy exit. The audience grows, however, and children fly kites and blow bubbles into the sky. Children are everywhere, it seems, including on stage, where the Beatlife Drum Troupe, down for the day from their centre in Anfield, knock out a thrilling 15-minute samba wake-up call.

Yaaba Funk, a party band formed at a party, sound like a sub-Saharan Basement Jaxx. Atongo Zimba consolidates Ghana’s dominance of this year’s line-up, with a steadily assured set on the two-stringed koliko that sends the audience into a reverential trance despite Zimba's invitations to dance. Dele Sosimi is the first to play Afrobeat – familiar to everyone as the music of Fela Kuti – and he presents a loose, bright and improv-based set, the best of the weekend. After an intense and aggressive set by Mokoomba, the audience disperses for another year, fingers already crossed for next year’s skies. [James Hampson]