The weather was dreich and X Factor winner and christmas chart-topper Leon Jackson couldn't sing after all because he had tonsillitis, but spirits were far from dampened at last night's Hogmanay festivities in Edinburgh.
Fears of a reprisal of last year's events, when gale force winds forced organisers to cancel the Hogmanay street party at the eleventh hour for safety reasons, evaporated as the Met Office's forecast for light winds and mild temperatures proved correct.
Up to 100,000 revellers poured into the city centre to see a huge fireworks exploding above Edinburgh castle to mark the start of 2008 and announcing that Edinburgh's Hogmanay was back.
The 9,000 revellers who had come to see Idlewild and Kasabian at the Concert in the Gardens, directly under Edinburgh Castle in West Princes Street Gardens, got an unexpected surprise when Noel Gallagher of Oasis made a special appearance to play guitar for two songs with Kasabian.