I went to see San Francisco’s No Vacation on Monday night, and while there’s never a bad time to take your band on tour – though playing your first-ever Toronto show in early February might not be the most sensible thing – the timing of this cross-country outing is a little odd by conventional standards.

The band, which has had a number of hiatuses and more than a few lineup changes in addition to moving across the country to New York and back, haven’t released new material since 2018’s Phasing EP, unless you count 2019’s limited edition cover album of The Cranberries’ Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? recorded for and released through Turntable Kitchen. The few tracks those who don’t have a physical copy can hear sound great, but it’s hardly an instance of striking while the buzz is strong.

Instead, it simply seems to have been a case of them hitting the road now because their schedules allowed it, and it seems like the years of pent-up demand from their fanbase is worth a lot more than trying to capitalize on a song going viral on TikTok. And yeah, there were a lot of people waiting to hear their hazy, peppy jangle-pop in person, myself included although I’m a newcomer to the band.