Goose Are Worth the Hype at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday

Goose – Music Hall of Williamsburg – January 25, 2020

It’s a frequent lead for these types of write-ups but here it is again: The jam-band scene is a remarkably self-renewing thing, with word-of-mouth breeding interest in upstart acts from all pockets of the country, elevating them to national exposure, cementing their place in an emerging vanguard behind the generations of artists who came before them (and who were themselves once the emerging vanguard), and then, later still, looking over their shoulder to welcome a new crop—always, a new crop—of wide-eyed and excitable young improv savants who’ll stake their claim to vanguard status soon enough.

Claim-staker of the moment is Goose, the Connecticut quartet already sniffing rarefied jam-scene air in terms of how quickly they’ve gone from buzzed-about curiosity to being able to sell out a venue the size of Music Hall of Williamsburg—in advance. The expanding national tour dates are booked, the crucially tastemaking opening slots are popping up (hello, Red Rocks with Umphrey’s McGee in June), and, most important, the buzz is legit: These guys can strap together a hell of a meaty two-setter, which they most certainly did in a three-and-a-half-hour show at the very, very packed Music Hall on Saturday Night. There’s a lot of what you’d expect—polyglot style ranging from straight-ahead rock and R&B to loping reggae and groovy psychedelia—and then a bit of what you don’t for a band in this developmental stage, namely, patience.

The guitar-hero peaks come but they’re earned, and the marination leading up to them isn’t just aimless vamping or ambient sprawl meant to signify a “jam” before all parts land in the same spot and its guitar-and-keyboard hose ahead of an outro or segue. Several times throughout Saturday’s show they went for a just-enough exploration that felt richly satisfying for how it was crafted as much as its dance-it-out fun factor and impressive musicianship. I really enjoyed “Hot Tea,” “All I Need,” “So Ready” and the tautly bouncing “Doc Brown” among the sturdy originals that tried a few things. They tucked in a little Radiohead (“Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”) and Moody Blues (“Nights in White Satin”), too, although they didn’t need ’em. There’s a lot of depth in Goose that they weren’t necessarily in a rush to show us all at once. Word of that kind of mojo in this scene gets around, and, well, here we are. —Chad Berndtson | @Cberndtson

Photo courtesy of Chad Berndtson

