{"id":375558,"date":"2026-04-12T06:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T06:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/375558\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T06:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T06:20:10","slug":"the-next-great-rock-band-blows-their-coachella-crowd-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/375558\/","title":{"rendered":"The next great rock band blows their Coachella crowd away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cameron<\/p>\n

Cameron Winter of Geese performs at Gobi Tent during the 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 11, 2026 in Indio, Calif.<\/p>\n

Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for Coachella<\/p>\n

INDIO, Calif. \u2014 Geese are covering \u201cBaby\u201d by Justin Bieber, just hours before the pop star’s headlining Coachella<\/a> set. \u201cI know you love me, I know you care,\u201d Cameron Winter sings, his oily hair falling over the sides of his sunglasses. Transposed into Winter\u2019s signature squawks, the lines sound silly, with the goofy, mismatched energy of a child dressing up in his father\u2019s suit. Emily Green, the band\u2019s guitarist, twangs along like she\u2019s playing on a surf rock record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then, at Winter\u2019s last cry of \u201cBaby,\u201d Max Bassin pummels his kick drum, cranking the BPM by several notches, and Geese launch into \u201c2122,\u201d a jagged, proggy number. (No relation to the Rush album.) Played live, it almost sounds like a thrash metal song, and the crowd reacts like it\u2019s at an Anthrax concert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s Saturday, and Geese are playing Coachella’s Gobi stage. In its 45-minute set, the band mostly sticks to tracks from its newest album, \u201cGetting Killed,\u201d save for \u201c2122\u201d and \u201cI See Myself.\u201d I spot Jack White, who performed earlier in the day, watching the band from the wings.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re reading this, you probably know about Geese already. They\u2019re the band with the singer who bellows like a bagpipe with a face attached, but who still managed to sell out Carnegie Hall instantly.<\/a> They\u2019re the ones your cousin who lives in Brooklyn won\u2019t shut up about, even though he only heard about them for the first time last fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the months surrounding the release of the New York\u00a0indie rock band\u2019s newest album, \u201cGetting Killed,\u201d in September, the\u00a0critical consensus<\/a> shored up quickly<\/a>: Geese would be the next<\/a> big rock band<\/a>, the act that would shake the dust off of a stale and fractured genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This \u201cBaby\u201d moment, like so much else about the way Geese\u2019s style, teeters on the edge of s\u2014tpost territory. At one point, \u201cFamily Guy\u201d visuals flash on the screen behind the band. In between songs, Winter mutters something about how the palm trees are fake and it\u2019s all a lie; it\u2019s a bit hard to follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a testament to their sound, then \u2014 the angst in Winter\u2019s voice, in particular \u2014 that these hundreds of fans take them so seriously, leaning back as they scream the words to \u201cAu Pains du Cocaine.\u201d Geese\u2019s sound feels like something genuinely new. It\u2019s true that Winter\u2019s voice draws Tom Waits comparisons, and the guitars on \u201cTrinidad\u201d sound like they leaped out of a ’70s psych rock record. But these elements combine into a fresh formula, songs that mutate the verse-chorus structure into one long, slow build.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Take the band\u2019s opener, \u201cHusbands.\u201d It begins simply, just the slow, insistent pulse of a drum and a few held bass notes. The song\u2019s intro is not so much a lull as it is foreshadowing: a promise that those same elements, benign as they appear now, will in a few minutes return to beat the listener over the head.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The build is gradual, piece by piece: A guitar line here, a cymbal there. The weight grows heavier and heavier. By the end of the song, the crowd shouts along with Winter, who stretches the last word of every line, filling it with air: \u201cYou know what I meaaaaaannnnnnn.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Collectively, Geese\u2019s greatest talent is this control of tension. The band\u2019s songs last three or four minutes, but feel twice as long; they ratchet in intensity, bar by bar, until they threaten to roll off the edge of a cliff. They sound like they\u2019re made to be played on a miserably hot day.<\/p>\n

This Saturday is not a miserably hot day. The crowd, which includes many boys, does not smell as bad as expected, even a few paces away from the inevitable mosh pit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Geese\u2019s performance climaxes with \u201cTrinidad.\u201d At the track\u2019s first guitar twangs, a few enterprising fans turn an already big mosh pit into a truly ridiculous one, which gapes across most of the front of the crowd. Something about a\u00a0mosh pit at a show like this feels silly; the tones of Geese\u2019s guitars are fit for a blues song. Take its presence and size as signs of these fans\u2019 devotion, and the feverish enthusiasm they have for these songs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Green\u2019s opening guitar lines creak like an old machine kicking into gear. Winter lets loose a few subdued moans of \u201cI tried,\u201d his voice cracking slightly. Then he drops the anvil.<\/p>\n

\u201cTHERE\u2019S A BOMB IN MY CAR,\u201d he screams. Everybody screams, really. On cue, bodies flood in to fill the empty space on the floor, and arms fly. I try to film the band, but get knocked off balance; I think someone\u2019s head bangs into my spine. I give up, and let the song carry me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Winter of Geese performs at Gobi Tent during the 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69,195234,189445],"class_list":{"0":"post-375558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-sfgcoachella","14":"tag-sfgculture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}