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Having just released their sixth LP, Big Modern! — “their most accessible and hook-filled album yet” — Connecticut jam stalwarts Goose kicked off a highly anticipated two-night run at Madison Square Garden on Friday with two dynamic sets of originals, covers and sit-ins.

Photos courtesy of Silvia Saponaro | @silvia_saponaro

@silvialovesmusic

Goose – Madison Square Garden – June 28, 2025

When the books are written on Goose, their early 2020s period will be remembered as one of the great ascents not just in jamband history, but in music, period. The Connecticut quintet has been one of the fastest-rising acts in the business for years now, but it was possible to see them in small rooms in some markets as recently as a few years ago — and certainly before the pandemic. They’ve kept up a relentless pace ever since: bigger stages, bigger crowds, furiously danceable and ever-more-varied improvisational segments, stronger and sturdier original songs flecked or shot-through with pop, funk, jazz, indie folk and many other flavors, and an apparent sixth sense for what will be the next most effective button to push to build their audience. They’ve been through lineup-change drama and a bit of strife and emerged better for it — playing some of their best and most varied shows now as they cross into another echelon. 

The jamband scene itself is a generationally renewing thing and has been since the 1980s: Bands rise, become a new vanguard and make way for the young ones coming up behind them, from rock to bluegrass. Even by the scene’s standards — where a great and varied live show is still the biggest coin of the realm — Goose’s role in that vanguard has seemed inevitable for almost as long as they’ve been a going concern. Back in November 2024, with Goose as the first band on a stacked bill at the Soulshine benefit at MSG, it was clear that much of the crowd was there for them, and that, when the time came for their own first MSG headline, they’d meet their moment. 

Meet it, they did: It happened Saturday night, and if there were any doubts the band wouldn’t treat it as the moment it was, they were gone within minute one of “Factory Fiction” and the proceeding two sets and four hours of volcanic jamming, expert setlist pacing, tasty surprises, and the pride and confidence of deserving to be there — owning that crown. 

It was smorgasbord Goose, meaning a little or a lot of everything: big, arena-filling sonics, a guest horn section for a stretch, some range-flexing covers (Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill” was a hoot), and above all a relentlessly competent focus on the core foursome — Rick Mitarotonda, Trevor Weeks, Peter Anspach, Cotter Ellis — making one statement after the next. There were the beatific anthems (“Give It Time,” “Dripfield”), the dark disco jammers (“Creatures”), the protracted excursions with varying textures (“A Western Sun,” “Thatch”), the zany jazz-rock asides (“My Mind Has Been Consumed By Media”) and the meaty, showpiece uncorkings that get talked about years later on jam message boards (the second-set “Red Bird,” whoa, what a tentpole moment at the Garden). They went long and got there unhurried, the kids shaking their bones and the lights dazzling as the hour pushed past midnight into the all-in “Arcadia” encore. Honk and then some. —Chad Berndtson | @cberndtson

Photos courtesy of Joe Papeo | www.irocktheshot.com