Reasons why I will go see a band live:

• I like them.
• Someone whose taste I trust told me I would like this band.
• A publicist I like asks me to shoot the show.
• A publicist in whose good graces I wish to stay asks me to shoot the show.
• A publicist I don’t know sends me a pitch that’s intriguing enough that it makes me want to leave the house.
• I’m bored and it’s somewhere to go.
• I’ve read lots of good stuff about them in the Indy/on blogs/whatever.
• They record on Bloodshot Records.

And after last night, I can now add:

• They were the live music on an episode of Sklarbro Country and I thought they were awesome, so when someone offered me tickets, I went.

That is the case with Philadelphia’s Vacationer, who make sort of … ukelele-influenced electro-indie-pop without the actual use of a ukelele on stage (I think there was one in their Sklarbro section, though); it sounds like, well, going on vacation and drinking drinks with umbrellas in them and dancing on patios in the summer. It went like this: two Fridays ago, Vacationer were the live music on the Alpha Site’s beloved Sklarbro Country podcast; two Sundays ago I discovered they were playing Carrboro with the Naked and Famous and it was sold out; this past Friday, one of the Speakers in Code kids emailed me and asked if I wanted to shoot Vacationer at the Cradle last night.

Yes, yes, I did. And yes: yes, they were even more awesome live than they were on the Sklars. They flat-out rocked, and the tiny underage hipsters in the crowd all danced, and they were super nice dudes who were crazy excited to hear that I’d heard them on the Sklars for the first time. Vacationer is a band that not just looks like they’re having fun on stage, they’re a band that makes you have fun while they’re on stage. They have a groove and a shimmer to their music, they sound like margaritas on a beach, and they have a tiny light-up globe on stage with them. There’s nothing bad there, and everything good.

Highly, highly recommended. Full photo set (including first open Now Now but not headliners the Naked and Famous) here.