Vacations

One Liner: Woozy indie guys turned pop rockers from Down Undah.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but this is woozy indie rock and bright pop rock.  The lead singer mentions "bedroom-pop-jazz"
Home: Newcastle, Australia

Poster Position: 24
Weekend Two Only.  Friday.

Thoughts:  Why is the 24th line of the poster almost all Weekend 2 bands only?  I decided to just run through this one line, and they're all good bands who I likely won't get to see!  Jenky!

Assuming this band is the right one with this name, because they have one song with over 200 million streams and the other two with the same name have (1) one three song EP with less than 100k total streams among all three songs; and (2) even fewer streams and weird ass song names like "harunatsuakifuyuvacation."  This article is confusing AF, because the correct "Vacations" is the first one they mention, but then they go into detail about the other two?  I wish they would have come up with a better band name.

Assuming this article is about the right band, it is from Newcastle, Australia and comprised of four dudes - Campbell Burns, Jake Johnson, Nate Delizzotti, and Joseph Van Lier.  Their initial EP came out in 2015, and it seems like they had to wait until just recently for their star to rise.

The original sound of the actual band reminds me of the Mac Demarco sound - soft-focus, woozy, loose-limbed rock music that feels like you're in a dream.  The first two songs in their Popular list are gems from a 2016 EP.  Although, they sometimes fire up and get a little snappy, like the New Wave-ish "Honey," which gets into an excited-but-mopey groove for a while until the saxophone kicks in.  And then "Seasons" sounds more like a Strokes tune to me.  And "Panache" is an awful fight with an Autotune machine (that I am going to blame on the fact that it has two collaborators called Sarah Sykes and Craterface, I blame the pimples guy for the Autotuned crap).  So they've got some range here.

I think 2016's Vibes is the best of the albums/EPs.  "Dave Brubeck" is a lively instrumental funk party.  "Home" is some of the purest Mac Demarco sounds on here.  But that big song is also on here - no other tune in their catalog comes close to the stream count of "Young," with 237.9 million streams.

I dig the vibe on there, but I'm not sure what in the world is going on with over two hundred million streams.  Was this somehow a TikTok thing?  Aha!  Yes, it is.  An article I read says: "yet it is these early tracks that a new fanbase on TikTok has recently clung onto. The song “Young” gained huge popularity on the app over the past year (written in 2021)."  Apparently it had to do with something called the "knock knock trend?"  I just read an article saying this was a trend of people knocking on doors in funny ways?  Fuckin' TikTok is so weird, man.  2.4 billion views related to Vacations Young KnockKnock?  God I'm old.

Since those initial EPs, their sound has become more pop-centric.  "Seasons" opens to the new album - 2020's Forever in Bloom with an exciting groove and solid guitar rock sounds.  Nothing like the dreamy, wooze of those early tracks.  And you can tell that the masses have agreed, as nothing on the new album cracks even 4 million streams.  But its still pretty solid - reminds me of Two Door Cinema Club and The Strokes, if they mingled their sounds.  The top track is "Lavender," with just over 3 million streams.

Danceable party tune right there - I'd imagine seeing this played live would be a blast.  If you were able to stand still during the performance, I think you should get a prize.  I'm bopping along in my office right now having a lovely old time.

Before Forever in Bloom, they released Changes in 2018.  It had one song with a big stream count for you to check out.  This is "Telephones" with 80.9 million streams.

Keeps the vibe of those initial EPs much more closely than the newer disc.  And again, while I enjoy the feel of the older stuff more, I've actually been enjoying many of the songs on the newer album (with the absolute exception of "Panache.")

I'd go see these fellas too, if I happened to be there on their day Second Weekend.