Goose :: OK, They're Good! (Plus Trey Anastasio!)

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I’ll be honest: I’ve tried to dig Goose several times. I’ve watched several live sets and lots of people I respect dig them. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t connect with them. I think it may have something to do with the moustaches and my own biases. You see, my Dad had a mustache, and any time I try to grow one, I just see my Dad in the mirror, and I love my Dad, but that’s not what you want to see when you look in the mirror.

Anyhoo: (as always), I’m on a big Kurt Vonnegut kick, and I just watched the 2021 documentary which included the quote from Cat’s Cradle: “As Bokonon says: 'peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.” That’s when Pitchfork decided to review the bands newest album Dripfield and I decided to give them another try.

Brady Gerber’s review includes this short section:

Watching their viral set at Peach Fest 2019—which, like many Goose sets, you can stream in full on YouTube—I thought wow, these guys can play. But it wasn’t just their virtuosic performances: Between the sprawling solos, they had actual songs that I walked away humming.

So, like any good Bokononist would, I went and watched that “viral'“ 2019 Peach Fest set. And I ended up digging it. A Lot. I sent it to my brother and a friend with the caption: “I think I might have been won over.” You see, they too had tried Goose before and found it not to their taste. But this set won them both over just like it did me. Maybe it will do the same for you. Maybe not. Either way, I hope you enjoy and occasionally stop along to remember that “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”

The Deets:

Goose plays Peach Fest 2019 in Scranton, PA.

Setlist:

  1. Madhuvan

  2. Time to Flee

  3. All I Need

  4. Wysteria Lane

  5. Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo

  6. Arcadia

  7. The Way It Is

  8. Hot Tea

Trey Anastasio of that band from VT sat in the other night with Goose in NYC and thanks to the wonders of the technology, you can watch it right here right now:

The Deets:

  • Goose - Hungersite → Arcadia (feat. Trey Anastasio) - 6/25/22 Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY

Here is the band’s official video for Hungersite: