On the final stretch of their 3D Country tour, Geese migrated back home to Brooklyn, New York for their concluding performance at Warsaw. Geese is versatile in tone and the audience was respectively diverse in experience. Half the crowd was confidently bedazzled in cowboy boots and diving into the mosh with abandon. The other half –myself included–was made up of really excited, if slightly awkward, nerds.
Before the bands came out, a high schooler and their parent swayed to the songs played over the speaker. A member of security attempted to offer relief and struck up a conversation with the mother. Standing directly in front of the speakers, the two screamed at each other their memories of growing up with rock concerts. The guard reminisced about girls going “wild” when male band members jumped into the crowd, quickly making sure to disparage about how dangerous the logistics of such shenanigans were. The mother recollected a slightly less Beatlemanic experience.
As the opening band Winter walked on-stage, the woman next to me gasped, “look at all those pedals!” Samira Winter smiled into her microphone in shoegaze ecstasy, lulling the crowd into the angelite daydream of What Kind of Blue Are You? During “sunday,” the guitarist spiraled to the side in a distortion-induced haze. The drummer created a sense of gravity, grounding the band into a unified orbit, especially during “atonement.” As she eased the audience towards the end of her reverie, Winter susurrated that Geese “literally restored my faith in rock and roll.”
When Geese started their set, they did so with nothing less than rapturous glory. Cameron Winter, a Jesus robed in an airbrushed Daft Punk-Peter Griffin-Kirby sweatshirt, stepped up to the mic and began to levitate the crowd with “Domoto.” Unleashing an almost Wall of Sound Shepard’s note in “Undoer,” Gus Green’s and Dominic DiGesu’s guitars interwoven with banter. Green gave a coy goose flap to the fans chanting “Geese” between songs. “I See Myself In You” contained almost a reggae playfulness. To security’s dismay, DiGesu slipped off his bass, crawling down off the stage to embrace the crowd as “2122” morphed into Geese’s version of The Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting For The Man.” Cameron Winter’s unique timbre lived up to the Lou Reed precedent.
Affectionately comparing Geese to their influences is tempting. After all, Dominic DiGesu has the groove of Tina Weymouth, the post-punk courage of Bruce Thomas, and the versatility of Paul McCartney. Gus Green contributes a danceable liveliness to a shoegaze, art-rock technicality. Max Bassin’s drums brings 90s Seattle to 20s New York. Sam Revas on keys lends a Ray Manzarek sensibility to the live lineup, rounding out the band’s presence when needed but packing a punch whenever he chose. But Goose is more than an amalgamation of their heroes. How many keywords can one string together before admitting Geese is something rare, new, and special.
In her 1986 poem “Wild Geese,” Mary Oliver writes “you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. / Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile the world goes on.” These lines capture the essence of the band in general, but they felt especially applicable during “Cowboy Nudes.” The song does not dismiss climate anxieties, but it does make reckoning with a likely inevitable future a bit easier. While the world demands that Generation Z come up with all the answers, Geese provides a rollicking and sexy respite, imagining a joyful Armageddon. Geese brought Winter back on stage for the track, and the bands danced to the end of the world. New Yorkers and tourists alike cheered for the post-apocalyptic city’s drowning.
Cameron Winter suddenly dropped the cheeky gestures of “3D Country,” adopted a blank stare, and let his water bottle slip his fingertips as an uneasy twang consumed the room. Ending “St. Elmo” with a scream, he turned himself into the vocal equivalent of Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun.” Max Bassin emerged from behind the drums, beaming, a gloriously sweaty mess. Cameron Winter leaned his mic stand over and mimed stomping, thanking his audience without having to replace equipment.
The crowd screamed into the dark for “just one more!” After just long enough for everyone to catch our breath, the band came back out. The demand immediately shifted to “two more!”
While the crowd had been awake throughout the show, “Killing My Borrowed Time” infused spark into even the nerds on the fringe of the mosh. DiGesu added an almost “Psycho Killer” thump to “Disco.” At the end of “Crusades,” Cameron Winter bored into the soul of the audience, rumbling “I will see you there.” He immediately broke into a golden retriever grin, wagging a wave at the audience as he bounded off stage.
