Last Tuesday, the 24th, at House of Blues Dallas “Tourzilla!”, a show featuring co-headliners Vacations and Last Dinosaurs took place. Both of these bands originally hail from Australia, and this is their first US tour together, although they both have visited the states separately. The crowd was filling in nicely as show time approached, many concert goers dressed in costumes at the request of the bands, making the night have an already interesting start.
As the crowd waited in anticipation for Vacations, They teased an appearance by projecting a fragmented, and quite honestly intense, image of Buccee’s iconic beaver mascot onto the 8 piece screen. The band posted on their Instagram announcing their arrival to Texas with a Bucc-ees sign saying “Next Exit,” a single off their anticipated new album Terms & Conditions, set to release January 12, 2024. This single was also the opening number to kick off the set. This set the tone for the dancey-guitar-pop-rock vibe that they brought to the stage. The lighting encapsulated the moods of the songs, flooding the venue in purples, pinks, blues, and on one song, their hit song “Young,” green.
The crowd was dancing the whole time and one person crowd surfed, causing lead singer Campbell Burns to change one of the lines in the set to “Keep him away from security”. The surfer was safely deposited into the ground and security was agitated in an amusing way. Vacations closed with an electric single titled “Midwest” and left the crowd wanting more, and finished off with a bow to address the crowd.
Up next was co-headliner Last Dinosaurs, who appeared on stage in suits and started playing. They played multiple songs off of their most recently released album “From Mexico With Love”, and spoke to the crowd in spanish in between songs, causing the crowd to go wild. They said they could always count on Texas to have Spanish speakers in the crowd. They had a similar indie-pop sound that complimented their co-headliner well, but with a more upbeat tone, reflected in more use of pinks, yellows, and reds in their lighting color scheme.
Last Dinosaurs also mentioned Bucc-ees, asking if it was pronounced “Buck-Es” or “Beu-cs”. This elicited a giggle from the crowd and the feelings were good all around. Both bands had a great energy and emitted an ecstatic response from the crowd, and I look forward their return to Texas (and Bucc-ees everywhere).
