Goose made their grand return to Montana last night, playing an excellent show at the beautiful and idyllic KettleHouse Amphitheater in Bonner – proving the “never miss a Montana Goose” adage true. A perfect fall evening set the stage pre-show, and the venue’s perfect location on the banks of the river with a mountainous backdrop just creating the ideal pre-show vibe.
The band came out strong with a nicely-jammed “Atlas Dogs,” drummer Cotter Ellis’ primal beat laying down the perfect bedrock for the band to improvise over, sticking close to home but brimming with mid-tour confidence. Hitting a thrashy peak, the band cooled and segued nicely into “One In, One Out,” the Peter Anspach original getting its third play and first with jam vehicle status.
Picking up right where the “Atlas Dogs” jam left off, Ellis continued to lead the way with aggressive playing, guitarist Rick Mitarotonda playing big leads through the Type I section as bassist Trevor Weekz rumbled in below. Multi-instrumentalist Jeff Arevalo showed off his brand-new guitar as the band hit the peak, laying down nice chordal work.
Quickly transitioning into some grimy funk, Anspach pivoted to sharp clav and Ellis matched the vibe, going heavy on the cowbell as Weekz really pushed through the mix. Mitarotonda stuck to rhythm work and let keys lead the way for a while, a low synth drone getting introduced as well as a new descending chord progression thanks to Anspach and Weekz.
The jam seemed to be heading in a new and spacier direction from there, but the band opted to pull out and head for “California Magic” instead. A romp through “Flodown” continued the set before improv returned with “Elizabeth.”
Anspach quickly began to lay down phased-out clav chords, getting a little exploratory before he and Mitarotonda linked up on some more upbeat rock riffing courtesy of a switch to piano. “Liz” then proceeded to do what it does best – blow up the energy with some locked-in jamming, covering a lot of ground and ending up in a wildly dissonant build with excited reactions from Anspach.
From there, the band continued the trend of “Interlude II” that has come through this tour, giving the intro jam a workout before leading into an exuberant “Jive I.”
“Jive Lee” emerged to close the set, quickly taking off into space with a brisk pace and squishy OB-6 synthesizer work from Anspach. Mitarotonda toyed with variations on the song’s main riff, keeping things driving before flipping on his synth pedal for some aggressive envelope filter guitar.
Building up a strong head of steam, the quirky guitar effect lent an interesting dimension to the otherwise standard “Lee,” bringing the first set to a close on a high note after over an hour of excellent energy and playing.
Re-emerging with the “Pancakes” that had been missing in action for the past few shows, the band wasted no time before diving into the jam, Ellis whipping up a nice funk churn as Anspach switched to punchy electric piano and Mitarotonda went full low-end distortion.
Arevalo added some excellent percussion accents as the improv developed, Mitarotonda stepping back for some vamping as Weekz pushed into a leadership role, linking up on some riffs with the guitar. Anspach pivoted to clav as Goose put a new spin on the first set’s standout funk jam, going headlong back into the grease and grit.
This is some highly danceable music right here – driving forward as one unit inside some deep grooves, the dual-drum attack really putting on a CLINIC as Anspach returned to piano and we started heading for a peak. Smoothly re-entering “Pancakes” proper, Goose continued to show off how absolutely dialed in all five band members are at this point in the tour, building to a sustained peak before Mitarotonda worked the ending riff in.
“Wysteria Lane” was called next as the band moved into my favourite jam of the night, locking in on some particularly nasty two-guitar Goose, a jamming style largely missing from this tour thus far. Anspach hung back initially, setting up a synth drone before twining around Mitarotonda’s playing, both guitarists utilizing heavy delay and heading for dark territory almost immediately.
Coalescing and picking up speed thanks to Ellis, Weekz backed off of his initial aggressive playing to give room to the guitarists, both of whom switched their traditional roles. Mitarotonda played the support, darting around Anspach’s leads with sparse riffing, the hypnotic delay from the duo creating an increasingly vicious crowd, the steady OB-6 drone underneath it all keeping us grounded.
The band steadily began to build up a head of steam from there, calling to mind the first part of the Cap “Drive” from earlier this year as Mitarotonda re-introduced some “Jive Lee”-adjacent riffing as he took the lead once again. Anspach built up a roaring wall of noise, the entire band building into a thrashing peak that hit the apex and quickly fragmented into a major-key space.
Seeming to just be the beginning of the improv, the band opted instead to segue into the Goose debut of Radiohead’s “True Love Waits,” making the leap from the Orebolo stage. While this cover is excellent and I was excited to hear the band play it, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the ripcord out of an intense and very promising “Wysteria” – it’s rare that they lock in so quickly and cover so much ground in such a short amount of time and I was eager to find out where the next few minutes would have taken them.
“Rosewood Heart” came next, making a statement that its long absences so far in 2024 would not be repeated, the beautiful song perfectly going with the mountain air. Continuing the funk theme of the show, Mitarotonda blazed through a strong Type I section before collapsing into another driving dance jam, Weekz pulling out front with some slightly distorted underwater tones as Anspach took to low-end piano. Giving the drummers some, the band toyed with stop/start jamming for a bit before ending the jam on a dime – another unfortunate song that ended too soon, but with the eye on the clock they wanted to have time for a full “SOS” set closer plus encore.
“SOS” proceeded to do what it does best, perhaps the best set closer in the Goose catalog getting the Montana crowd raging before a blistering “Rockdale” encore brought the night to a close.
Toward the end of the second set, I posted about how I feel that while this tour is perhaps Goose’s most consistent ever in terms of full-show quality, the ceiling – or the highest highs – seems to be a little bit lower than it has been in the past. With deeper maturity to a lot of their improv, the band has been really taking us to exceptional spaces in essentially every night, but sometimes not letting them have the time necessary to really explore their fullest potential.
Goose returns to KettleHouse tonight for their second show as we kick off the weekend, and I have no doubt that they will burn the amphitheater to the ground once again – hopefully the skies stay clear so we get a perfect view of the moon rising again. A livestream is available exclusively for nugs subscribers.