Belatedly, here’s Friday’s round up. I spent yesterday asleep and cranky, a victim of three nights’ gig-going and a heavy cold.

But it was a great final night of gigs, and somehow I managed to hammer these words out on Saturday morning…

An underwhelming, unnamed and unholy triumvirate of bands was not a promising start. After two days of blistering quality, In The City looked to be buckling under its own expectation, but after Working For A Nuclear Free City‘s sharp, fragmented, clutter-rock sated the Castle Hotel’s sardine-packed crowd, the night soared again.

In fact, the Castle was so busy that at one point I turned around to speak to a friend, during which time a further flood of inquisitive souls wandered in, and I was unable to turn back around to see the stage. We beat a hasty exit for the sake of our sanity.

Youthless‘ swashbuckling enthusiasm was so infectious that the band’s urging of the audience to clamber onto the ceiling of Umbro Studios was tentatively explored as a genuine possibility. Proving that there are a thousand new noises to be made from a bass guitar, Youthless were a lo-fi, hi-impact smash. Tune into tomorrow’s final round-up to hear an interview with them.

Fellow Iberians Mujeres were in it for the funny too, and, after failing to help Youthless find a lost bag, I arrived just in time to miss Dutch Uncles, witness half a dozen flustered girls crowd around Radio 1’s Huw Stephens, and finally figured out what made Kisses tick. They are a band with one great song, but they have found twelve different ways of playing it. Success is theirs to blow.

I exhausted my final spurt of energy in a heaving Ruby Lounge, where seemingly everyone from In The City had collected to drink away the pain in their feet and ears. It was alive with their joy. Brilliant.