Geese

There is a general, and broadly accepted, sense that we are in the middle of something special, both musically and culturally. Everyone is onboard the Geese train. The Anglo-independent music sector, feeling somewhat existential following two brat summers, Charli’s hyper-charged performance at Glastonbury, and the declining commerciality (and throughput) of the Arctic Monkeys, has received a much needed shot in the arm. Many reviews border on the hysterical, heralding Geese as the saviours of rock music. 

As Geese descended upon Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo venue on 25 March I was therefore determined to find some sort of fault. There must be something wrong with them. The gushing tour reviews indicated this was unlikely to come from musicality or showmanship, and knowing what I do about Geese, I (and a fellow band of increasingly weary millennials) decided to focus instead on the likely clientele: the infamous Gen Z.

There are two key markers of a live show that will be inundated by Gen-Z ticketholders. Having grown up dealing with the vagaries of the internet, where a moment’s indecision can mean the difference between £40k of Ethereum and an empty pocket, very little can be left to chance. Online tickets are bought as soon as they are released. Any show popular with the Zoomers is therefore likely to sell out in minutes. Millennials, perhaps with a latent muscle memory of the days where you had to pick up a phone or head to the physical box office, are for the most part much more digitally lethargic. 

Secondly, Zoomers are, for some reason unbeknownst to me, incredibly punctual. At the end of last year I saw Alex G (who I understand is the equivalent of Neil Young to those born after 1997) at Glasgow’s Barrowlands. Arriving at 7pm, more due to a slowing social schedule than any form of advance planning, I was alarmed to see a queue of young folk stretching around several street corners and the back of the venue. This has since been corroborated by other confused millennials. A perplexing attribute, though on reflection one that is entirely commendable. 

Unsurprisingly, Geese’s London shows sold out in minutes. And, as suspected, as I walked past the Eventim at 6.30pm to head into the William Morris for a pre-gig pint there was already a large queue forming. 

I prepared for the worst. I have learnt on good authority (the Daily Mail) that Gen Z are so severely addicted to their smart phones that they have little to no interest in old-fashioned fun and games, such as drinking alcohol at live events. And I know from Reddit that it is indeed Gen Z who are to blame for the much-reduced vibes present at Mac DeMarco’s latest tour; they flood the stalls in large numbers, standing stock still, hundreds of smartphones livestreaming every moment of the show in fulfilment of their strange, unknowable internet subcultures. Gone are the days of his infamously reckless live shows, full of bared Albertan flesh, half hour-long breakdowns, and large quantities of spilt lager. According to Reddit, the blame definitely does not lie with the slowing pace of his latest outputs, his transition from alcoholic Canadian alt-jock rocker to West Coast road tripper or his own confession that he has “retired from the way things used to be.”

Other peculiar Gen-Z habits include the wearing of jorts. As I said: I was prepared for the worst. Yet as Geese kicked off with the portentous drumbeat of ‘Husbands’ and the first plastic cup of cheap beer was thrown over the crowd, I knew all was not well with my presupposition. That cup was clearly full of alcohol. And as Geese’s opener picked up the tempo, I saw below me in the downward slope of the stalls something entirely shocking - a dearth of phones, followed by a parting in the crowd as the more enthusiastic attendants whipped the crowd into a mosh pit.

At one point, the pulsing of the mosh caused me to fall on one younger chap. When I attended a heavy metal festival in Leeds in 2008, a similar accident was greeted by an angry (and bruising) punch to the chest. Yet at the Apollo I was greeted by a cheery thumbs up. As I was lifted to my feet by bystanders (perhaps out of concern for what must have seemed like a frail old man), I saw on the face of the crowd surfers above looks of pure unabashed and unashamed joy. 

Goodwill was flowing at the Eventim Apollo, and it was being served by Generation Z. 

The ‘Gen Z crowd let down’ line of attack was clearly dead to me, and as the evening progressed all the others were quickly closed too. In terms of Geese’s ability on stage, I probably do not need to say much more than: “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR!” The set was heavy, with even the gentler songs and choruses amped up to the level of commotion. Cameron Winter cut a stylish 24-year-old figure standing slightly off-centre from the mic, characteristic wrap-around sunglasses adorned, his peculiarly droning voice holding up surprisingly well over the high decibel guitars and drums.

‘Au Pays du Cocaine’, the lilting and relatively accessible heartbreak track that acts as the band’s primary gateway drug for new fans (myself included) was perhaps the only noticeable respite for the heart rate during the near 2-hour long show. The track’s title, a pretentious play on words from the Medieval utopian myth of ‘pays de cocaigne’, is perhaps the most bookishly named indie track since Mac DeMarco’s Salad Days (an archaic Shakespearian reference to a previous heyday, typically in youth). Cockaigne or Cockayne is a land of plenty in medieval myth, an imaginary place of luxury and ease, comfort and pleasure, the opposite to reality’s harshness. Given Winter’s heartrending, near-begging lyrics, we can perhaps see this myth as the intense happiness he appears to have lost from a previous relationship, and which he now longs to return to. 

Geese have, somehow or other, managed to seize the zeitgeist. During the show we saw three celebrities: Lewis Capaldi, James Acaster and Ed Gamble. At a previous sold out Roundhouse show, the venue was apparently bombarded by celebrities desperately trying to call in their clout. Nerdish indie music has not felt this relevant since Jay-Z and Beyonce were seen at a Grizzly Bear show in Williamsburg in 2009.

It is a rare, special thing to see a band live with the winds of critical and cultural success blowing fully in their sails. Getting Killed, Geese’s latest album (which received the full tracklist treatment during this show), was ranked as one of the best albums of 2025 by a range of well-regarded publications, including The New Yorker, Pitchfork and The Guardian.  As I think about Geese’s moment in music history I am reminded of Charli XCX’s closing messages during Track 10’s (and the broader set’s) ruinous conclusion at Glastonbury last summer, itself an emotional conclusion to the brat era: “I don’t want this to end. Please don’t let this be the end.”

These are Geese’s years; more power to them.

I suppose all of the above is just to say one thing, really:

GEESE. LET’S GOOOO !!!!!