Alex Salmond has talked of a carnival atmosphere several times throughout this campaign. It definitely came to Perth Concert Hall for most of last night.
Folks were certainly in the mood for maracas (well, bagpipes) before the event had even started.
Hundreds gathered outside, many of whom didn’t have tickets, ahead of the First Minister’s appearance.
Flower of Scotland was sung, complete with the obligatory piper accompaniment, and saltires were waved as the square in front of the concert hall became a mini party zone.
Inside, the usual stage was ditched in favour of a floating lectern in the centre of the room so the estimated 1,500 strong crowd could encase the speakers.
They duly did.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=x9spSQmfGgM%3Frel%3D0
A semi-circle in front of the speaker, a four-deep terrace behind, with the back of the hall and balcony bursting. This was the rally atmosphere being aimed for.
Of course it couldn’t be good-natured the whole time. The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson was booed into the venue, making you wonder, in the event of a close No vote, whether Yessers might feel they could have got over the line if some supporters had been half as energetic knocking doors as they have been shouting at Auntie.
Everything ran late, it is ever so with the SNP leader. His warm-up acts, Elaine C Smith and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon, got the crowd going.
It was all about Salmond, though.
He kept his well-pitched delivery measured not barnstorming but the crowd was determined to make up for his lack of noise.
“Yes we can” echoed through the hall at spontaneous moments, at one point causing the speaker to halt until he could be heard.
But who would have thought Trident would bring the biggest cheer? The reiteration of a pledge to scrap nuclear weapons almost took the roof off.
Among the historic and the hysterics, though, there was time for talk of reconciliation.
“There will be no Yes campaign, no No campaign, only a Team Scotland,” said the First Minister.
In what were almost his parting words, before the obligatory “let’s do this”, Salmond posed the question: “What will the history books say?”
Time to find out, Scotland.