Photos and Review by Dan Ojeda
Goose is smack dab in the middle of their summer tour and recently rolled through Raleigh, NC, for two nights of indie groove goodness at the Red Hat Amphitheater. Their two shows showcased everything their fans love about them: old favorites, new cuts from their recently released album Big Modern!, and other-worldly improvisation.
Night one opened up with a tasty “Yeti.” The song, which highlights dual instrumentalist Peter Anspach, showcases his chops on the guitar. He is known to come out to the front of the stage during his solo, and he did so again in Raleigh. However, he sauntered across the entirety of the front of the stage, all while soloing, until he reached the end of the stage and one of the Goose stage managers told him there was no more room. Showing a real bond, the manager bear-hugged Anspach, while the latter didn’t miss a note in his solo. The first set continued and perhaps, for the first time ever, included not one but two Cotter songs. Cotter Ellis, the drummer, brought some of his original compositions from previous bands into the Goose repertoire, and it was neat to see two of them in the same set. The set closed with “Rockdale,” which really showcased lighting designer Andrew Goedde’s colorful palette as he washed the stage in a beautiful ROYGBIV display.
Set two began with a rendition of The Band‘s classic “Don’t Do It.” A monster Big Modern! followed, which showcased just how deep they can take the title track from their eponymous album released just two weeks ago. Appropriately, the lights were cast in pink and yellow for most of the song. This version was superb and could easily be a favorite in the fan-curated Jam of the Year competition held to decide which jam was the best of the previous year. “Red Bird” had a good groove and was followed by the Garcia/Hunter classic “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo.” There was not anybody in the crowd who abstained from singing along with this one. “Tumble” closed the set, and an apt version of “How It Ends” closed out the encore slot.
The vibes for night two started much more ominously than the previous night. Fans heading to the show were met with messages and alerts stating the show was being delayed due to an impending thunderstorm. Thankfully, it never materialized. Instead, the weather offered about 15 minutes of a drip field of rain, which caused the scorching temperature to subside, as well as producing a majestic double rainbow over the skyline of Raleigh that was enjoyed by all fans if they only turned around to see it. At this point, the vibes were back to being sky-high. Because of the weather delay, the show’s format changed from two sets to one big, fat set. Not that any emergency situation ever arrived, Goose opened with a twenty-minute version of “SOS.” Wanting to showcase more of the new album, the band played “Savenger” and “POP” consecutively. Both new tracks were well received by the crowd. “Turned Clouds” was played, probably in a nod to Mother Nature. The last portion of the set featured a spacey “Empress of Organos” that had a smooth segue into the rarer “Rosewood Heart.” Fan favorite “Shama Lama Ding Dong” helped usher in the encore, which dissolved into the ending of “Empress of Organos.” The lyrics for the song couldn’t have been any more fitting for this Wednesday evening: “You say, looks like rain today, We say, oh what a day to be livin’.” The expressly glass-is-half-full optimism of the song was shared by the fans who, only hours earlier, thought perhaps there would be no music this night at all. Instead, fans were treated to an excellent weekend of music by Goose. Goose still has shows in Boston, New Jersey, and upstate New York to finish off their summer tour.
