| 09-Nov-2014 | It was still dark when we walked down to the bus terminal this morning to catch the 9:00am Blue Lagoon Express. It was sad to see Tristen and Andy lugging their suitcases – this is their last stop before KEF this afternoon to fly back home.

We arrived at the Blue Lagoon just as it opened for the day so it was relatively uncrowded … and it was too early for the still-hungover festival-goers stopping off on their way to KEF. We took full advantage of the “swim-up” bar – brunch beers for the guys and a blueberry skyr smoothie for me. It was snowing tiny flakes on our drive from the Ring Road to the Blue Lagoon but by mid-morning it was just windy.

After lunch with the guys we bid them farewell and returned to RVK for the afternoon. We caught a quick set at the bookstore then hung around the apartment until picking up pizza for our final dinner. Around 8pm we made the short 10 minute walk in 30-degree weather (thankfully no wind!) to tonight’s venue. Vodafone Hall is a multi-purpose building off to the side of the soccer stadium. Stage setup, lighting and sound was excellent. There were probably 3000 or so people there. Tickets were available for purchase (which is what we did) or festival pass holders could queue up on Friday to get one of the 2200 free passes issued.

Story time with Futuregrapher at Edymundsson bookstore. Dude here, rockin’ some sweet zoopa pants, read Icelandic poetry from Land Minna Mæðra, recorded it, then looped it back over some ambient techno. It was pleasant enough, just not what I was looking for in my “DJ set”.  That’s Airwaves for you …. you gotta roll with it.

Excellent set by The War on Drugs – very “tight”. They’re just wrapping up a tour so they had everything dialed in. I’m not too familiar with their catalog but I’ve heard some of their stuff on the radio and it’s good, solid rock.  One thing I noticed that really distinguished their set from all others I’ve seen this week is that only once in the hour they played did the sound completely stop; everything flowed from one song to the next even if guitars needed swapped or re-tuned, someone carried the sound.

A quick 30 minute turn to get the stage set and ready to go for The Flaming Lips.  Props to the crew on that one – it was a huge feat and they managed it in time!  TFL played a solid 2 hours (with encore) tonight and it was a spectacle: balloons, confetti, lights, 8 – 10 foot inflatable cartoony characters, costumes, a man-sized hamster ball …. whew! What a ride!

The spectacle that is The Flaming Lips.  It was visually spectacular with huge inflatable characters roaming the stage, 3ft mylar ballons bouncing around the crowd and fantastic glowing rope lights with flashing LEDs synchronized with the music.

And that’s all for Airwaves 2014 folks! Tomorrow morning we’ll run over to Lucky Records to say good-bye to our friends, do one last stroll through the city on the way to lunch then it’s off to the airport. It’s always sad to leave, but we’ll be back!

As always, the Iceland Airwaves 2014 recap:

– Total Shows: 35
– Total New-To-Us Bands: 24
– Celebrity Sightings: 0
– Northern Lights Sightings: 1
– Favorite shows: Vox Mod, RVK Soundsystem, HAM, The Flaming Lips