Show Review - Goose 4/10/24 Port Chester, NY

30-minute Cape Cod

Set 1: Turbulence & The Night Rays, Earthling or Alien?, Silver Rising, Atlas Dogs, How it Ends^[1] > Tumble

Set 2: Gen X Cops^[2], Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa^[3], Arrow, Borne > Hungersite^[4] > Dripfield

Encore: Slow Ready

Coach's Notes:
    [1] FTP as Goose.
    [2] Vampire Weekend. FTP. With Ezra Koenig on guitar and vocals, Chris Tomson on drums, and Chris Baio on bass.
    [3] Vampire Weekend. FTP. With Ezra Koenig on guitar and vocals, Chris Tomson on drums, Chris Baio on bass, and Jessica tease from Rick.
    [4] With Welcome to Delta and Dripfield teases from Peter.

On Wednesday night, Goose returned to The Capitol Theatre for the fourth and final show of their little spring excursion, debuting new drummer Cotter Ellis among a plethora of amazing jams and new song debuts. With so many setlist staples still unplayed, it was almost as difficult to predict what would make an appearance for the last show – and I don’t think any of us really could have known what was in store.

The show began innocently enough with “Turbulence & The Night Rays,” a first-set staple that had been left out of the first two nights of the run despite being on the written setlist. There seemed to be some serious extra mustard to the jam – especially energy-wise – as bassist Trevor Weekz played a very active role in various tension/release builds thanks to guitarist Rick Mitarotonda’s joyous leads.

Goose wasted no time before jumping into jam territory with “Earthling or Alien?” and its deep funk. Of note, the off-beat guitar intro was played differently than normal, perhaps to assist Ellis with the downbeat entry of the drums. Mitarotonda’s solo early in the song had him clicking on a heavy layer of distortion as he wildly bent notes.

The jam itself took shape around an extended funk groove, essentially four people setting up a stage for Anspach to dive right into the capabilities of his OB-6 synthesizer, tweaking its various filters and effects to fill a ton of sonic space. Mitarotonda stuck to rhythm work for the bulk of the jam, occasionally trading riffs with Weekz, while Ellis and percussionist Jeff Arevalo held down the beat.

Weekz joined Anspach in envelope filter land as the patient space continued to expand, waiting for one member to take the lead and venture out further. Arevalo came in strong on tambourine as the energy picked up, prompting Mitarotonda to begin asserting himself more and coming more into the foreground.

Hitting a dirty peak, the jam came down into a series of drum breaks as Anspach threw in some brief clav work before wrapping up.

“Silver Rising” kicked off the next portion of the set, a three-song sequence connected by a theme (some may call it the “Dawgtych”), and much like the earlier “Turbulence” featured an extra-mustard guitar solo from Mitarotonda that had the capacity crowd howling for more. Goose obliged and lit into “Atlas Dogs,” led by the excellent swing of Ellis.

Much to the delight of diehard fans (I may have screamed loudly), “Atlas Dogs” was given a jam treatment for the first time since 10/6/22, breaking a streak of 18 jamless versions. Ellis attacked his toms to craft a fluid groove as Anspach laid an undertone of synth, letting Mitarotonda take flight into the airy space and delicately outline the earworm-y chord progression of the song, a theme they have found within improvisational passages before (see 6/6/22 “Indian River” and 12/9/23 “Echo of a Rose”).

After several minutes of excellent Type I play, Ellis flitted over his hi-hat, turning the beats on their head and letting the rest of the musicians twine around each other into a gorgeous major-key theme. The band opted to bail on it relatively quickly, but this gives huge hope for more jammed-out “Dogs” to come later this summer.

The Goose debut of “How it Ends” completed the narrative arc of the first set with various lyrics reflecting those in “Silver Rising” and hinted at a greater story being told among the anthemic guitar leads. Much like “Give it Time,” this track had been performed once before at the Vasudo trio show in September 2022, and also shares its Broadway-like feel.

“Tumble” came in to close the first set – and based on the time, many expected an exclamatory version that would serve to head into the break with a bang. Goose was not to be stopped, however, and dropped a massive 24-minute rendition immediately up there with the best versions ever.

Anspach began the jam with his best Cory Wong impression, digging into the funky groove while he took a stroll around the stage thanks to his wireless guitar. Every single previous version of “Tumble” has contained this Type I section in the key of F, with a modulation up to B-flat to signal time for an outside-the-box excursion. At the Cap, the playbook had already been thrown out so I should not have been surprised when the funk disintegrated into an exploratory dual-guitar space around the 10-minute mark.

The band quickly modulated into a gentle major-key space where Anspach found his way onto Vintage Vibe, cultivating a gorgeous and almost romantic theme to the next segment.

Mitarotonda assertively took the reins and reeled off melodies, telling a beautiful story that lasted just the right amount of time – sometimes a shreddy guitar peak can overstay its welcome but this one was just perfect.

Anspach got funkier as the peak died away, prompting Ellis to pick up the pace as the band hit back into a theme closer to the standard “Tumble” motif, but Mitarotonda was far from done and fell back into the arms of the rest of the band, listening carefully and hanging back while Anspach’s Vibe work drew itself to the forefront.

The energy gradually built back up to an excellent peak with some blistering fretboard taps from Mitarotonda that took us into the conclusion of “Tumble” and setbreak, capping one of the strongest first sets of the run.

As Goose emerged for the second set, a crew member rushed out with an extra microphone stand as Anspach invited up Ezra Koenig, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio of Vampire Weekend to join in on a couple of songs. I was initially apprehensive about the sit-in – after all, we were at the Cap to celebrate Cotter joining the band and I was of the mind that I’d rather see four shows of just the band, but my fears were gone approximately 10 minutes later as the octet went crazy on improvisation.

The rocking “Gen X Cops” led off the set before Koenig took the lead on “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” a song that Vampire Weekend fans have long had a joke about running eight minutes long someday – which definitely happened on Wednesday.

Mitarotonda took the lead early as Tomson and Ellis pounded away in tandem, reaching a fiery peak atop thick chordal work from Anspach. Koenig threw in some guitar accents of his own, clearly having a blast in the jammier setting than any of the musicians are used to performing in (the exception being Tomson, who is a member of California-based jam act Taper’s Choice).

Just short of the 9-minute mark, the peak died away into a percussive and heavier zone with some dual-rhythm guitar work as Koenig continued to hint at parts of “Cape Cod.” While the riff itself wouldn’t be teased for another 10 minutes, Mitarotonda hinted at some “Jessica”-adjacent licks on his way to a major-key modulation.

It's really difficult to have articulate full-band jamming with this many people on stage, especially those who haven’t had the chance to play together like this before, but the accomplished musicians managed to build an amazing bliss jam, the dual-guitar effect showing itself with great energy and effect through the long-form build.

Much to the glee of both guitarists, Mitarotonda finally went for the full “Jessica” tease before throwing headlong into a blistering peak that had been built up for the preceding ten minutes. Next came a darker shift with the drummers in the lead, bleeding into some stop/start funk with Anspach on envelope-filtered clav. Baio and Weekz were also given some time to shine in the breaks before the band eventually wound their way back to the conclusion of “Cape Cod,” much to the delight of the audience.

After thanking Vampire Weekend and sharing hugs and smiles, Mitarotonda lit into the beginning of “Arrow.” While I am definitely not the biggest fan of how long this tune usually takes to reach interesting territory, I was pleasantly surprised to find the band leaping into some moody and layered jamming thanks to Anspach’s keyboard work. Ellis kept an insistent tempo up throughout the 25-minute song and single-idea exploration before returning home.

A quick conference between band members – it was already getting late – had Anspach remark that they were going to play past curfew. At that point, it was pretty clear what was coming – a performance of the “Driptych,” as seen on 2022’s Dripfield album.

“Borne,” beautiful as always, led into an adventurous “Hungersite,” which continued its energy from 2023 by absolutely blowing the ROOF off the Cap thanks to the high-octane guitar soloing and gleeful energy – complete with an exulting Anspach “yeah!”

Coming down from the frenzied peak, the band opted to draw out the improvisation before committing to the “Dripfield” intro, though the presence of Anspach on guitar and the general vibe of the next segment suggests it might be an extended intro rather than an extension of the “Hungersite,” but I tend to defer to the way it gets tracked on nugs.

“Dripfield” brought the house down and proved that YES, Ellis can play this song well, even showcasing its jam potential by seamlessly slipping from the tribal beats into a driving and uplifting space that was all just celebratory vibes to finish the final set of the week.

A “Slow Ready” encore – another Dripfield track that was also surprisingly cut from 2023’s Cap run setlists – sent us out on another high note, with lighting director Andrew Goedde painting a colourful box around Anspach as the latter danced through the arpeggiator jam, once again sharing joy and excitement with all of us in the audience.

Across four incredible nights, Goose proved that 2024 – much like previous years – is going to be their year. Reinvigorated with new songs and fresh jamming ideas, the wintertime spent in the Chateau has already paid dividends and will no doubt blow us all away when the band returns to the road for an extensive June tour.

Until then, we’ve got these four magical nights to sustain us along with dreams of what amazing music we’re going to see when Goose takes over some magical (and huge!) venues later this year.