Not a minute of courtesy. When the clock struck 8pm, the entire Paral·lel 62 room in Barcelona was shouting for Geese’s departure, showing the tremendous desire there was for the band’s debut in Spain. Tickets, intended mainly for Primavera Sound subscribers, with the exception of a small space open to the public, flew in. This is not the data to highlight, but rather obvious. The fact is the wide range of ages that was seen in the venue, with some of the older attendees even staying after the concert in the hope that the band will sign their favorite vinyl for them. Geese is for everyone.
‘Husbands’ started playing at 8:01 p.m. The staging, elegant. For most of the show, the lights were minimal and an aura of mystery surrounded the band, except in key moments when everything lit up: the climax of ‘Islands Of Men’, the moment of ecstasy of ‘Taxes’… However, in the wildest moments, like in ‘2122’, the lights were worthy of a good headache. I don’t know if these were the parts that the general public enjoyed the most, but the track was certainly predisposed to all of that. It was seen with the tumbling contest in the open pit of ‘Trinidad’, with glasses of ice flying onto the stage (one of them, a few centimeters away from hitting Emily Green’s pedals), and with some of the most brutal pogos I have ever seen.
After such levels of intensity, people clearly needed water, which led to one of the funniest moments of the concert: Cameron Winter speaking Spanish. He had already started the set with a “hello”, but got carried away towards the middle of the show. “You need water,” he told his team with near-perfect pronunciation. “These people need water,” he repeated, half laughing. The water arrived. Suddenly, I turn 180º when someone from the audience says something to her (impossible to decipher from where I was) and Winter responds simply: “And your mom too.”
This joking attitude is a complete contrast to what happens during the songs, in which Cameron seems to build his own myth with each performance. That’s what they told Zane Lowe: “The only thing we take seriously is music.” Even the lighting technician joins in on this task, putting him under the spotlight at certain moments of the evening. In an interview with The Guardian in 2024, Winter assured that what the public enjoys most is confusion. They don’t know how to react to what they are seeing. That’s exactly how I felt during the huge ‘Long Island City Here I Come’. It is the only song in the set in which the vocalist plays the piano. Of course, because he must get fed up at his solo concerts. His fingers are capable of silencing the entire room, even when they are not yet playing the song he is playing.
The confusion arose from the beginning of the song, with a microphone that did not work well. His voice was almost imperceptible over the chaotic instrumental. I even wondered if this was normal for their concerts, since the exact same thing happened when I saw them for the first time in Switzerland, but it’s not. On that occasion, the public let him know. In this one, the track was busy making a deadly circle. Spain is different, right?
Cameron gets up and goes back to the main microphone, which was working. It was one of the very few times when I didn’t understand anything that was happening on stage: while the audience waited for a pogo that never seemed to come, becoming more and more unstable, Winter dedicated herself to dancing (or so I think) as if she were a snake coming out of a wicker basket. Until he gave the audience what they wanted: “Here I come,” he delicately released into the microphone. Total mess.
Being my second concert with the band, I was able to notice the subtleties that one ignores the first time and that show that Geese works so well because no member is replaceable, whether it’s Max Bassin entering a trance with his drum kit or Emily building the ambient effects with her pedals as if it were the first time. This is precisely the greatness of Geese: they move around the stage as if it were the rehearsal room. The songs are alive and are never interpreted in the same way, apart from being great compositions in themselves. ‘I See Myself’ sounds like it came from ‘Getting Killed’, ‘Cowboy Nudes’ becomes an experimental jam and ‘Half Real’, quiet from the factory, is slowed down even more. In other words: each concert is truly unique.
From the first note, the atmosphere at Paral·lel was one of celebration. I don’t know if it’s because the band was finally in Spain, or because of the heat of the atmosphere, or because of the personalities who were in the venue, from Cala Vento to Latin Mafia. What is clear is that none of us who were at that concert yesterday are going to think that Geese is a psychological operation, as so much has been said about them. A product that is only marketing would not be able to provoke so many different emotions in the audience, and so effectively. ‘Trinidad’, which yesterday sounded like something out of Black Sabbath, could be on par with the incendiary anthems of the Sex Pistols for how it shook the audience, literally. On the other hand, the group demonstrated in ‘Cobra’, and especially in ‘Au Pays Du Cocaine’, that they are also capable of transmitting the purest tenderness. So much so that it seems that they are capable of absolutely everything. Matter settled. The hype can live up to reality. You just have to be Geese.
