Vacation “Existential Risks and Returns” 2021. Salinas Records. Gritty garage pop punk from Cincinnati. We caught Vacation at Cactus Club this past Friday night – it was our first time seeing them (they’ve been around since 2009). My friend and front-row short girl buddy Claire pestered me to go to the show and I am so glad that we did – it was excellent! I hadn’t listened to them before but previewed Existential Risks on Bandcamp prior to the performance and picked up the LP (their seventh) at the merch table.

They put on a super high-energy show: loud and tight with lots of rock and roll moves:

Vacation at Cactus Club: the bassist catching some serious air

I nabbed a shot of the setlist at the end of their set (another audience member was going to grab it but one of the Vacation guys was all like, “No we need that for the next show” — this Milwaukee performance was the second-to-last on their current tour).

Vacation played a couple of my top tracks from Existential Risks and Returns including my favorite, the hypnotic, tense and slinky “Controlled Burn” as well as the LP opener “Colored By Numbers” and “Ripe.” Other favorites from Existential Risks and Returns are “Liberty Tax Statue Man” which feels like a mix of The Who, Bachman–Turner Overdrive and Velvet Underground, “Quantum Cafe” and the killer all-out rocking album closer “Road Kill Cactus.”