IT’S fair to describe Vacations as one of the Newcastle music scene’s real success stories of 2018.
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The indie band released their debut album Changes and finally performed in front of their cult international fan base in the US and Europe. And the breakthrough year isn’t over yet.
Last week, Vacations flew to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to perform at the Coracle Music Festival. That was followed by a performance in the Thai capital of Bangkok at the Maho Rasop Festival on an international bill boasting English bands The Vaccines and Slowdive.
“Our booking agent for Europe and the UK has started to look into the Asian market and sent some offers our way a couple of months ago,” Vacations frontman Campbell Burns said before flying out.
“It’s all coming to a head now, so it’ll be really exciting to play these festivals and see what the crowds are like over there.”
Vacations will use the trip to reflect on a stunning 2018 before they return home to begin work on their follow-up to Changes.
“We have a whole bunch of songs, which are in the demoing process and we’ll start recording them over the next couple of months for the next release.”
There’s also a second US tour to plan. Vacations have been added to the Savannah Stopover Music Festival in Georgia on March 7-9.
Despite their growing international fan base, which has seen their singles Home and Relax receive 1.7 and 1.5 million streams respectively on Spotify, Vacations have received almost no airplay from national broadcaster triple j. It’s something Burns hopes to rectify with the next record.
“They haven’t picked us up at all, which is fine,” he said. “It’s kind of nice being the black sheep or underdog of the Australian music industry.
“A lot of bands work really hard to build themselves up in Australia before going overseas, but we’ve done the complete opposite.”
DIARY ENTRY
AS the organiser of The Gum Ball and Dashville Skyline music festivals, Matt Johnston has done more than most to promote Hunter music.
Last week, Johnston releasesd his debut album Sanctuary with his band Magpie Diaries. A Newcastle launch is expected in January or February.
