live in los angeles:
The Vacation
(Viper Room - February 2008)
So maybe it’s true that if you’ve seen one of the Vacation’s live shows, you’ve seen them all. But these Los Angeles natives make it to where the audience wants to see them all. February was the month for Hollywood to get it’s fill of the Vacation with a month-long residency at the legendary Viper Room. And I was sure to get my fill; their music so catchy and intriguing that you can’t help but move your hips and get lost in the swagger of frontman, Ben Tegel. Let yourself go and “do what you want…it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Around halfway into the set, Tegel would empty a beer bottle in his pants and a few minutes later you couldn’t tell if the liquids dripping from his thin frame were beer or sweat or saliva. The actuality of it is, is that it was a probably a strange concoction of the three in addition to sweat from the audience. The last show at the Viper Room was the most entertaining, musical continuity aside. The room was packed and bad attitude was palpable. Tensions were present on stage and it was clear that Tegel had guzzled back a couple beers and was swinging from poles and singing from the shoulders of friends present in the audience. Left standing on the stage, the rest of the band (Steve Tegel on guitar, Denny on drums, and Dutch on the bass) gave the show its musical continuity.
This is what live rock shows should be about: the smell of Jack Daniels wafting up from a sticky bar floor, a band writhing on stage, and the music being just as important as that of the performance and stage antics. The Vacation doesn’t disappoint. Thought they might have disappeared from the radar for a short spell, they are now back and ready to be heard once again.
— Lauren Napier
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