Vacations bring their woozy guitar pop all the way from Australia to Nottingham...
Here at LeftLion, we always respect it when a band visit our city and they pick a local artist as their support act. Even though they came all the way from Australia, Vacations had done their research, and selected the lads in Fat Bamboo to open up their show at The Bodega.
Kicking off the set with their latest single Fat Bamboo – if you didn’t already know what the band were called, now you definitely do – before flowing into the track’s B-side Hourglass, they brought high energy and got the crowd engaged during their thirty-minute set.
What impressed me most was that they swapped vocalists throughout the set, rotating their roles every few songs. Finishing with their debut single, Walk Into The Sun, a girl who was stood next to me asked me what they were called as they left the stage, so she could add them to her playlist. They definitely gained some fans throughout the evening.
The energy levels may have dwindled towards the end of the set, with these tracks having a more mellow tone than some of their more recent releases, but who can really blame a band for ending their set with some fan favourites?
Vacations' references to Nottingham’s culture also revealed that they had done their research. From Robin Hood to Forest, these guys knew their stuff. They also proved that they know how to produce a tight, solid indie tunes – having been on the scene since 2016, they had their set mastered to perfection.
Their most recent single Next Exit was an obvious highlight for the crowd, and with lead singer Campbell Burns disclosing that it would be appearing on their upcoming album, this can only be a good sign of what’s to come for the band.
The energy peaked with the track Actors, and even though things didn’t quite descend into the mosh pit chaos that Burns may have requested – the crowd weren’t quite as rowdy as they initially promised to be – there was still plenty of dancing to be seen.
The evening concluded with the band’s most popular tunes, including Young, a track taken from their 2016 Vibes EP. The energy levels may have dwindled towards the end of the set, with these tracks having a more mellow tone than some of their more recent releases, but who can really blame a band for ending their set with some fan favourites? We sure can't.
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