Show Review - Goose 6/17/25 Wilmington, NC

Summer of GOONTZ

Goose tour continued last night with their lone stop in the South for this summer at Wilmington, NC’s Live Oak Bank Pavilion. Situated on the river, the beautiful lawn and stage are newly-built as of 2022, featuring rows of folding chairs behind a pit on the flat grass.

Getting past the wild heat – but avoiding the potential for a surprise thunderstorm that threatens the area almost daily at this time of year – Goose took the stage just after 7:45 with the tour’s third “My Mind Has Been Consumed By Media.” Guitarist Rick Mitarotonda was aggressive from the jump, the band’s day off after a long week clearly having re-energized them all as frenzied riffs poured off the stage.

“Echo of a Rose” was tapped next for a quick 6-minute rendition, continuing a run of this song without much in the way of exploration – contrary to its massive history of being a jam vehicle. While a nice, fiery peak is always a good time, it feels like almost a waste to burn “Echo” in a slot like this.

“Lead Up” and “Yeti” rounded out the first part of the first set, the latter delivering a healthy dose of two-guitar funk before the band finally began to open things up with the second “Green River” of the summer. Much like the breakout jam in San Francisco on the first night, Goose took the CCR cover out for a serious ride as Mitarotonda and multi-instrumentalist Peter Anspach took a rhythm-forward approach on their duelling guitars.

Bassist Trevor Weekz led the band into a rocking ascending progression that has become part of many funk jams over the past few weeks, locking in on drummer Cotter Ellis’ pocket for a sustained, blistering peak. Smoothly transitioning back into the ending of “Green River,” the North Carolina crowd went nuts for what had just transpired before the band lit into “All I Need.”

This is another jam vehicle that has had a weird 2025, some uncommonly short gaps and even more oddly short runtimes making what was once almost guaranteed to be a standout jam a more uncertain occurrence.

Luckily, Goose had other plans last night and delivered the first 20-minute “AIN” in just under a year, departing from the song proper into a swaggering minor-key groove. Mitarotonda led the way into a brief bout of more energetic, aggressive play before suggesting a progression akin to the “Red Bird” jam.

Anspach laid down some nice piano chords under the guitar melodies as Weekz probed around them both, his active play elevating the first peak just past the 10-minute mark.

The quartet broke into a percussive space from there, Ellis’ fluid and rolling beat keeping the momentum up as the band built a swirling bed of textures. Mitarotonda’s loops came to the forefront as the guitarist worked some purposeful melodies alongside the repeated sounds in a really cool way.

Building up to another big peak, Mitarotonda’s playing grew more insistent and anthemic in nature as Ellis increased the tempo, Goose ripping through a fast-paced and high-energy section with Anspach adding some soaring organ to the mix.

From there, the band came down from the peak into a few minutes of breathtakingly beautiful contemplative jamming, Anspach laying gentle Vintage Vibe textures as Weekz and Mitarotonda duelled with their melodic playing. “Borne” emerged from the space and acted as a nice penultimate song to the set as the band eschewed the jam in favour of an always-reliable “Give It Time” closer.

Returning for the second frame, there was clear intention behind the choice to begin with “The Empress of Organos,” and even more intention as the band went from Weekz’ solo right into a wild Goontz jam – skipping the usual turns by Anspach and Mitarotonda.

The band has really been refining this electronic-inspired jamming style on this tour, and the way that Ellis built up his pulsating disco beat around the arpeggiator and Mitarotonda’s sharp envelope-filter work was excellent to see.

Layering in some more samples and a brighter arpeggiator, Anspach picked up his guitar to join the fray as Mitarotonda dove headlong into digital sauce land, amping up the energy as the Goontz fully took hold. From there, we were treated to several minutes of straight dance vibes before an uplifting progression emerged that Goose quickly latched on to for a series of incredible peaks.

Fading quickly into “A Western Sun,” what could have been a brief cooldown led to the longest version since the fabled 6/15/21 rendition – and the first to cross 20 minutes since 11/16/21.

Beginning in a space similar to recent “This Old Sea” jams, a percussive and rocking jam evolved with an ascending bedrock of piano from Anspach dominating the familiar space while Mitarotonda let loose a sustained burst of fiery leads.

Transitioning on a dime into a breakneck pace, Anspach and Mitarotonda began to spar back and forth with aggressive riffs as Ellis held down the speedy pocket. With some fun stop/start motifs, the wild energy continued through the end of the jam that, while not being the deepest of improv, was an absolute blast in person and is a fantastic display of the band’s chops. Especially on the Mitarotonda side of things!!

Engaging in brief bouts of dissonance, Goose charged through one last glory-fueled peak before dropping into the dance vibe again with “Creatures.” This song has gone through an interesting evolution as of late, with Ellis taking a more tribal approach to the jam rather than straight-ahead disco – a move I really like.

Wrapping up the “standard” peaky portion of the jam, the band picked up where the first set’s “All I Need” left off with a beautiful few transitional minutes of spacey play, a quiet and restrained motif I definitely would love to see more of on a regular basis. The way that Mitarotonda can build around a mellow motif coupled with Anspach’s mastery of the textural approach was a beautiful way to lead into the second set-closing “Silver Rising,” though the band came eerily close to the intro of “Your Direction” on the way.

The show wrapped up with a blistering “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” encore, Goose eschewing their typical move of bringing the unfinished “Empress” back to close things out and instead just blowing through just over ten minutes of high-octane play.

While Goose in Wilmington had a relatively weird start to the show, the band dialled in afterward and matched the jamming strength with setlisting and energy, playing to the sometimes-unengaged North Carolina crowd but not at the expense of improv like last week in St. Louis.

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Tour continues tomorrow with the first of two shows in Cleveland. Watch exclusively with a nugs All Access subscription.

Tune in to our Day After Show recap of last night this afternoon at 3:30PM ET!