Geese, despite coming from NYC, feel like a Glasgow band through and through—in sound, in feel, in the way they carry themselves. Tonight’s crowd is fully onside, high with anticipation—the first of two sold-out nights at the Barras. Geese are back.

Outwardly simple, yet inwardly complex—drawing from so many corners of music that categorising them feels both impossible and yet obvious. Laid-back, falling-into-the-mic vocals deliver lyrics that feel meticulously thought out rather than thrashed together. Student-flat nonchalance wrapped in careful, considered presentation. How do you even begin to describe the music of Geese? They sound too young to carry this much weight, yet here they are—old souls in young bodies, channelling something between Velvet Underground, Sparklehorse, Violent Femmes, Kurt Vile, maybe Wilco, with an extra shot of Brooklyn voodoo thrown in for good measure.

I don’t personally hear some of the comparisons they’re often lined up against—but that’s fine, everyone pulls from their own library. The band members are no doubt the same: different stories, different histories, different influences colliding and melting into a virtuoso simplicity that suddenly railroads into full-blown Led Zeppelin extravagance, then slides into improvised jazz-funk touching on the brilliance of Miles Davis‘s drug-soaked experimentation. Somehow it all locks back together, crescendoing towards the end in glorious, controlled chaos. Drum solo included!

Tonight’s performance ebbs and flows like a living thing, building to peak after peak, culminating in an encore of ‘Taxes‘—yes, an actual encore! Geese have never been big on in between song banter but tonight sees Cameron visibly baffled by an object thrown on stage….could’ve been a vape or a back street Pigalle sex toy…no body seemed to know  and despite the crowd loudly chanting  ‘suck it,’ he declined. The object was thrown back into the clamouring throng. I cannot repeat what was said next. 

It’s not easy to be original in music, and being the ‘it‘ band of the moment can be a curse. But being different in your own time, on your own terms—that’s more than enough. That’s everything.

This was a mesmerising, at times hypnotic journey—electric from start to finish. Who knows where Geese go from here, but you’d be a fool not to follow them on that path. They’re from over there but somehow completely here, and that’s exactly where you need to be too.

 

 

Words: Nick Tamer     Images: Chris Hogge