Let's do it again!
Geese - Cameron Winter
Newport Folk Festival
July 25, 2025
FYI (ICYMI): I forgot the link in my initial post and even though the video is clumsy & peppered with overwrought introductions, you may find it preferable to the armchair meanderings that follow.
THE LINK! https://youtu.be/5Va0_W0YDsk
One year ago most people were unfamiliar with the band Geese — I had never heard of Geese.
My son, who seems to know every band before they even release an album, was somewhat familiar, so as we scored tickets to Newport we were both excited for Waxahatchee, Jeff Tweedy and three artists scheduled to appear one after another on the Quad Stage on Friday: Alex G, MJ Lenderman, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And oh yeah, there was one other band tucked in there who I seriously questioned whether we maybe should step out to a different tent to catch a different show and then return, but we stayed put.
With each subsequent artist performing sets better than I’d imagined, surely Geese would at least represent some sort of breather, maybe a chance to visit the nearby beer tent or the wall of port-a-johns.
The band opened with two interesting, lower-key songs, and then:
“GOD OF THE SUN I’M TAKING YOU DOWN ON THE INSIDE!”
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Peak experiences are rare — summiting a ‘Fourteeener’; the first time your baby really smiles at you; the moment with your friends, maybe at a party, where everything clicks.
Concerts are a reliable source. Usually there’s (at least) one moment where everyone — you, the band, the audience — connects on an astral plane of shared endorphins. But it also can be a singular moment that you share but it’s instead with every soul throughout history who has ever ascended to that level.
So, there we are. 4th row, Cameron Winter stalks the microphone. That he was unknown to me, his 6’3” frame loomed larger — intimidating almost — than it does today. I’m unaware of how the rest of the somewhat muted crowd is taking this, but I’m immediately transported. The band is tight, the instruments are transparently amplified, and the song is at once mystical yet relatable, the rhythms are jarring but measured, and the urgency explodes as if the end times were upon us (or maybe there was a bomb in my car).
The Newport Folk Festival delivered numerous peak experiences, some of them from the unlikeliest of artists [looking at you, Luke], but this moment is the one that ignited an obsession that keeps getting stronger every day!
Even so, I have three regrets: 1) a thunderstorm immediately shut down the rest of Geese’s set; 2) I had no idea that I had missed Cameron Winter playing a solo set on the Bike Stage just an hour before and not 300 feet away; and 3) I will never be able to experience Geese and Cameron Winter for the first time as I did in those moments and in the following weeks of searching for albums and video footage [all of this in advance of the media explosion surrounding “Getting Killed”]
Maybe there are times when you, too, wish you could go back and experience something for the first time. Or maybe there are times when you become the erstwhile docent for the uninitiated while secretly wishing the roles were reversed.
I’ve been there many times, and that’s why I’ve attempted to recreate my experience. Sure, it’s hardly universal (monoversal?) but it may prompt you to attempt to do the same. And then, maybe it's just for me.
Here’s 40 minutes that capture how I first encountered Geese and Cameron Winter. I don’t claim that it’s great, but it’s as close as I’ll ever get to re-experiencing a music artist who [hype alert] stands among a small circle that includes Wilco, Radiohead, and Springsteen, just outside the center that includes Dylan, The Beatles, Prince, and Nirvana. [your mileage may vary, argue amongst yourselves].
‘Hope this inspires you to attempt something similar!
