Lunar Vacation at The Bottleneck, Lawrence KS (2024-10-30)

Halloween came early to The Bottleneck in Lawrence, as a three-act evening headlined by Georgia’s Lunar Vacation brought the fun, frivolity, and of course themed costumes, to make for a spirit of the season evening, missing only maybe some free candy.

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The three-band evening began with a relatively new local band, Indra, an indie alternative group influenced by the likes of Paramore and composed of Ellie Bates, Clare Hawkins, Lisa Hild, Daul Lee, and Clark Russel.

The group was excited to announce a new single on Spotify called “Kissed” but singer Bates confirmed her favorite to perform was previous single, “Stay”, which starts acoustically and grows in size as the song progresses.

Bring close enough to Halloween, the band dressed as characters from the cult classic, “Rocky Horror Picture Show”, with the group even striking up the film’s signature song, “Time Warp” played a the end of their set.

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Another local band, City Hall was next – a band we saw live in this same venue earlier this Spring. The group, composed of Zack Black on drums, Brogan Scott on bass, Chris Tran and Daniel Zoller on guitars, and Ben Erickson on vocals took a different approach with their costumes, with guitarist Zoller dressed as Jesus and the remainder of the band in suits – A Preacher and the Choir they declared was the costume theme.

The band continues to grow their local following, with new singles being cooked up in a local basement studio (dubbed The Tollbooth) including their set-closing, “Sick”. Singer Erickson was in disbelief over the warm holiday weather, quickly shedding his suit jacket to continue up front with the set.

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Atlanta’s Lunar Vacation are indie rockers consisting of Gep Repasky, on vocals and guitar, Maggie Geeslin, on guitar, Matteo DeLurgio, on keyboard and percussion, Connor Dowd, on drums and Ben Wulkan on bass, forming initially in highschool and releasing their first EP back in 2017.

In 2021, the band released their debut full-length album through Keeled Scales called “Inside Every Fig Is A Dead Wasp” and hit the road touring, including opening for New Zealand’s The Beths, which was when we first saw them live in the Spring of 2022 in Minneapolis. This June, the band announced their sophomore full-length, “Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire” and its lead single, “Set the Stage”.

Being the band make up they are, the group dressed as Scooby-Doo and the gang (no Mystery Machine tour bus, unfortunately) and visibly seemed to be having fun on stage as Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and crew. Though we’ve seen them previously in Minnesota, it was their first time playing a show in Kansas and the band audibly worried about the weather and any threat of tornadoes in the area.

With the deciding Game 5 of the World Series taking place at the same time as their headlining set, they wondered if anyone in the crowd was missing the game, but all in the room had much more preference towards witnessing live music versus a televised game, with a few harsh words about the Yankees (understandably since they typically have the Royals’ number) coming back from the crowd.

Live, the band started ideally with the new album’s lead single, “Set the Stage” which proved to be an ideal opener and showcased a mix from both full lengths, as well as dipping into some earlier EP tracks.

A special note about their new song, “Bitter” played mid-set which helped inspire the band’s very own coffee blend called” Don’t Be So Bitter”, a collaboration with Decatur, GA java makers, Radio Roasters Coffee.

The band leaned on their older songs to close the set, finishing with “Cutting Corners” from their first full-length and going all the way back to 2017 for “Monterey” from their “Swell” EP.

Halloween festivities got underway a day early, compliments of Scoob and…err, make that Georgia’s fun Lunar Vacation, and that was more than all right to everyone taking it all in at The Bottleneck.