Arkells frontman Max Kerman knows Hamilton pretty intimately – but Friday’s massive Supercrawl crowd was still a jolt to his system.

“I’d been out in front earlier in the night, but I hadn’t seen what the crowd looked like until I actually walked onstage,” Kerman said. “It took my breath away. It was amazing.”

“My heart skipped a beat.”

And so ends Hamilton’s summer music festival season, marking the unofficial start of fall. Though organizers haven’t nailed down a proper crowd estimate, police say up to 135,000 people were around James Street over the weekend.

Hometown boys The Arkells played their 13th show in 13 days on Friday and were definitely Supercrawl’s biggest draw (sound and lighting issues be damned).

“God, the Arkells, man,” said festival organizer Tim Potocic. “It was stellar to watch a local band do that well and support the festival.”

Saturday headliners Spoon drew a smaller (though still sizable) crowd of fans who intently watched the band plow through a set that featured plenty of their new material.

But the Saturday event that drew the most attention wasn’t musical at all – Circus Orange’s bombastic fire and acrobatic show nabbed the attention of just about everybody on the street just after darkness fell.

It was a procession-style show that actually moved across Wilson and onto York, culminating with a giant, pseudo-hamster wheel in the sky that erupted with fireworks, sending plumes of ash down on the cheering crowd below.

Sunday’s show had a much different vibe, with the Daptone Super Soul revue commandeering the main stage and playing well into the evening for a crowd of soul and funk fans.

Potocic says getting Charles Bradley and the rest of the Daptone Records crew has been a three-year endeavour for the Sonic Unyon team. Seeing them blaze onto the main stage for a four-hour soul revue was one of the best moments of the festival, Potocic says.

“It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.”