If you wanted to check the heartbeat of British music outside the charts during the mid-Nineties, you had to listen to Jo Whiley and Steve Lamacq.

While not all the bands their Evening Session show featured were flushed with success, the show made its name by becoming a nursery ground for talent while Britpop was in its infancy.

The likes of Blur and Oasis would appear regularly, long before they became familiar to millions.

The duo split when Jo moved to a daytime slot in 1997 but remained committed to getting up-and-coming acts national airplay.

This drive to promote raw bands led to Jo and Steve fronting the station's annual Sound City live music festival, the small seed from which the mammoth One Live event has now grown.

The entire spectrum of success, from the starting out and nearly there to the top of the heap, is coming to Brighton and neither can wait.

Steve said: "It's great to get out as a station and meet up with the audiences. I get as much of a kick out of getting a few demos and just hanging about the pub as I do going to the gigs.

"It's a bit like going to a festival. It is always the things you are not expecting which are more exciting than what you already know about."

For Jo though, the trip down to Brighton offers more than a chance to catch a bit of music.

A former student at Brighton University while it was still a Polytechnic, she owes her broadcasting career to a decision she made while living in the city.

Jo said: "I had three years of hard drinking and being a Goth. When I first got into music I started working on Radio Sussex's Turn It Up show, which was an hour and a half on Sunday night where we could play anything we wanted.

"At that point I realised what I wanted to do. The city is still one of my favourite places in the country but I haven't been able to get down in ages.

"This is why it will be so great to come down without the kids and get out and about."

While Jo is looking up old haunts like the Escape club, where she used to work behind the bar, Steve is looking forward to being part of a Brighton crowd again.

He said: "We did some shows called Brighton Rocks in the early days of Britpop and the crowds were always really good.

"It's always worth going down to Brighton as there is normally a nice atmosphere at a gig.

"People living in the city are quite astute musically but without the arms-crossed, slightly critical audience you can get in the big smoke sometimes."

It won't just be swaying from pub to party, though.

Steve presents Lamacq Live on Monday night, aiming to rip the roof off the Brighton Dome and Corn Exchange with the sound of Starsailor, Electric Soft Parade, Hope Of States and The Music.

Jo will be unplugged at The Terraces on Wednesday morning with an acoustic set from Basement Jaxx. The show will feature Mercury prizewinner Dizzee Rascal, as well as hotly-tipped guitar band Keane.

Both agree the line-up this year is one of the best.

Jo said: "Things are pretty fruitful at the moment with a lot of exciting new bands and we have got an awful lot of them performing here.

"But the best thing about One Live is that it turns the place into a real hotbed of discussion, with everyone in the industry getting together and exchanging views."

Both Jo and Steve hope to take time out from the main events to catch some of the unknown Brighton acts playing as part of One Live Alternative.

Steve said: "I tend to think of Brighton as producing the Steve Buscemi's of the music industry. They are always that bit more quirky and unusual than the mainstream, like Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster and British Sea Power.

"The city has always been very colourful.

"I'm off to America this week and only get back on Sunday. I've barely enough time to change my underpants before going straight down to Brighton."

Go to www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 for the full guide to One Live in Brighton.