Live music review: Goose wrapped Spring tour in Texas
Connecticut jam band trailblazers Goose wrapped up their Spring 2026 tour in Texas over the weekend, their first shows in the Lone Star state since New Year’s Eve to cap off 2024 at Austin’s Moody Center. Friday night, April 24, saw the return of Goose to the Austin arena with their solidified four-piece lineup.
With their sixth studio LP, Big Modern! on deck for a June release, Goose is continuing a fierce trajectory of new tunes and a relentless touring schedule that shows them as one of the busiest touring bands on the circuit. For the Friday night two-set performance, The Wilton players brought a little something for both the fanatical and the casual. Fans can pre-order a vinyl copy of the record here.
Goose took the stage and opened with a groovy 10-minute rendition of “Feel It Now,” a selection led by co-frontman and keyboardist Peter Anspach. Goose picked up Anspach in 2017 after being a group with multiple different members. His contributions have completed the ensemble since, and it’s been a ride to the top ever since.
Singer and guitarist Rick Mitarotonda serves as the band’s esteemed leader, whose voice and conservatory-trained guitar skills have been a focal point since their humble beginnings. The older “So Ready” also showed its head, a fan favorite stretching back to the pandemic days when the band played for socially distanced audiences.
Since acquiring drummer Cotter Ellis in 2024, the band has never sounded tighter, and no instrumental jam is ever the same. The focused and honed-in nature of the rhythm section also features founding bassist Trevor Weekz whose contributions are a major highlight. Weekz’ tight grooves make for undeniable head-bobbing audience reactions. Whether it’s a 64th note-riddled guitar jam or an ambient keyboard-led selection, he drives the pocket and doesn’t look back.
A first set highlight came with Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U,” an 18-minute ode to the Purple One that shifted from introspective to a full-on dance party. With this track being one of the highlights of 1984’s Purple Rain, it gave a thoughtful homage to the departed legend. The sound inside Moody Center can be shaky at times, with the room’s size often making it feel like the band is fighting the room rather than filling it. This wasn’t the case on Friday. Every snare strike, guitar riff, keyboard clang, and bass pluck punched through with clarity, as is necessary for discerning Geese fans that take pride in analyzing every note.
New album lead single “Good2B” opened the second set. It’s one that shows how Goose has advanced as songwriters. Their endless touring and live debuts haven’t hit a wall since their initial rise as one of the scene’s top prospects. With a record-reveal campaign that included a mysterious website featuring themes from the album artwork and band-related lore, the sixth entry in their discography is set to be their most creative work to date.
A live rarity came in the form of Poliça cover “Amongster.” It’s third appearance in a live setting, Goose delivered the tight nod before launching into a jam-filled frenzy for the last leg of the gig. 2021 epic “Dripfield” appeared in a sprawling, 26-minute format, a multi-movement spell that’s produced some of their best improvs in one of their most well-crafted composed pieces.
This followed with a seamless segue into debut album Moon Cabin cut “Into The Myst,” that resulted in a spacey jam that stretched into “Type 2” territory with no discernible relation to the song’s original composition. The light show by Goose’s lighting director Andrew Goedde is always a highlight, with all the lights responding directly to the music being played onstage. Goedde has been around since their beginning and is a bona fide fifth member at this point with his expertise being a much-needed asset to the roadshow.
As the Moody 11 p.m. curfew was fast approaching after a smoking show, “Madhuvan” appeared in a relatively concise 13-minute form, allowing for an audience singalong for one of the band’s most empowering live anthems that can stretch as long as 30 minutes.
Side note: the duality of the lyricism for Goose can go from meditative spiritualism to music-festival mantras that quickly spread into online spheres as inside-baseball catchphrases. The fans compile all of the lines and try to guess what it all means – and almost nothing is ever literal.
Longtime dance-ready crowd-pleaser “Rockdale” acted as the standalone encore, a fitting way to end another Goose performance in the live music capital.
Goose wrapped up their Spring tour in Dallas on Saturday, with tickets for the rest of their 2026 tour dates available on their website. Upcoming album Big Modern! releases on June 12, with pre-orders also being available via the band’s website.
All photos by Drew Doggett
You must be logged in to post a comment.