One of the best parts of the 80/35 festival each year is the stories and the lore that begin to trickle out during the days immediately following the final act. There are so many memorable and unplanned events that happen when you cram 15,000 people into a small area that it’s impossible for one person to witness all of them. Luckily, we had about ten sets of eyes and ears roaming the grounds and observing. This is our attempt to add to the lore and set down some of our favorite moments from 80/35 : 2014.

1. The festival really got going with Gloom Balloon. The performance is just the right combination of musicianship and over-the-top hilariousness that one can’t do much but stand entranced and grinning. The highlight was the Ooh Ahh video. If you missed it, you missed out.

2. Foxholes threw out confetti tubes during their set (really hard, like he was aiming for someone). Not sure if this was the plan, but here’s a crappy illustration of what actually happened next to an unknown man. Confetti Crotch would be a good name for a band.

3. Raz Simone put as much heart into his main stage time as any act this year. At the closure he asked if anyone wanted to return his RedBox DVD. “It’s Great Expectations… Turns out it’s not an action movie… Will you watch it? You should watch it before you return it, it’s already like thirty days late… Who’d I give my hat to? I need that back.”

4. On Friday afternoon at the Generation Z Stage, there was a band consisting of mostly 12-14 year olds playing. They sounded decent and were covering the song Women by Bright Giant. That’s right, these kids were covering a local band. It says a lot about how far this city’s music ecosystem has come recently because this would have been unimaginableeven 5 years ago.

5. Conor Oberst was great, but the elderly dancing couple in the crowd really stole the show. No one within 50 feet of them was paying attention to anything else going on. For more on that see Juice’s Article.

6. Everything about Maids except for having to miss the Pert Near Sandstone show going on at the same time.

7. As if the mere fact that they were both singing, playing the drums, guitar and keyboard all at once wasn’t entertaining enough – Har-Di-Har the Iowa native multi-instrumentalist duo – left us with an honest and humorous song titled “We Need Your Money” – reminding us that they only see $0.000000000000001 every time their song is played on Spotify and if we want to keep hearing great music we need to empty our pockets. Their reward for such honesty – an elderly man throwing $1 up on stage. Well played.

We enjoyed ourselves immensely this year and look forward to years to come. Thanks so much to the Des Moines Music Coalition for all the hard work to put this on.