Geese: Live at Third Man Records

This direct-to-acetate live album captures Geese right before the hype was too much to bear

A buddy of mine sent me “Trinidad” when it leaked last summer. I should’ve loved it. There’s feedback, there are horns.

And there’s this kid who sounds like a trombone waking up in the morning.

Cameron Winter’s voice is a wiley, unpredictable instrument. Who – or what – is responsible for this? Having Television, Radiohead, and Ween on the same iPod as a thirteen-year-old? It’s either an instant turn-off or a temporary one. I tapped out after a minute-and-a-half.

During Geese’s meteoric rise last fall, I tested the waters again. 3D Country was a strong effort, the albums before too derivative. The “Au Pays du Cocaine” video is genuinely touching. I was told Geese’s sound would make sense if I listened to Cameron’s solo album, Heavy Metal. Hearing "$0" while enduring the third-worst migraine of my life, praying to all applicable gods for the ibuprofen to kick in so I could rally for a movie date – what an experience that was. Having seen Wings of Desire on said date, “Gooooood iiiiiiiis reeeeeeeeal! Gooood is reeeeeal! I'm not kidding this time, God is actually real” rattled around in my head as I vomited up unseasoned scrambled eggs. For what it’s worth, Getting Killed did make sense after this.

It seems I’d gone right through the archetypal Geese listener pipeline: from confusion through tepid appreciation, coming out at casual fandom. By the time drummer Max Bassin wore a Frank Zappa t-shirt on Saturday Night Live and guitarist Emily Green dared to wield feedback on a legacy media network, I was sold. Geese take music-making seriously. They can afford to. (Frankly, I do not give a hoot if they’re “nepo babies.” Mind you, we were not nearly this pissy about the Strokes!) But it’s refreshing to see a band acknowledge how unserious all of this is. Being the latest band idolized by ironic Carhartt-wearers is, for lack of a better term, goofy as hell. (Did I mention Cameron leaked “Trinidad” on Instagram Live? The joys of a band without media training!)

Geese kick ass on a live record. They proved as much on Alive & In Person. But I was apprehensive hitting “add to cart” on Live at Third Man Records. I saw the best bands of my generation destroyed by the hype. That which surrounds Geese is almost too much for enjoyment. SNL had already spoofed Cameron (complete with a Benson Boone backflip punchline) by the time they were musical guests. Everyone’s got an opinion, even “Geese-curious” Courtney Love. The grouchy, gatekeepy rock-and-roll set are making a lot of noise online, “This new thing doesn’t sound like the radio station I listen to on my lunch break, therefore it sucks and if you like it you’re wrong!” Neutrality towards Geese goes over even worse. Thankfully, the band themselves were unaffected by the hype when recording Live at Third Man. They played this set in Nashville in June of 2025; three whole months before Getting Killed.

Given one of my favorite albums of all-time was recorded direct-to-acetate, I know the power of a live album. I’ve felt it in the Mountain Goats’s career-spanning Jordan Lake volumes, and the unbelievable tension of Dylan’s “JUDAS!” show. My best friend tried to get me into Sonic Youth for years, but it didn’t happen until I came upon Walls Have Ears.

That being said, there are altogether too many mediocre live albums. In order to make a truly good one, the band has to be okay with the idea of losing control. With the omnipotent god that is the smartphone, most acts just won’t surrender. Damn the fear of hitting the wrong note in front of the masses.

Hearing a Geese melody is akin to watching a drunk party-goer riding a mechanical bull, but the bull is on stage at the ballet. Many a critic have invoked intoxication to describe Cameron’s vocal stylings – guilty as charged! Nowhere on Live At Third Man is this more apparent than “Islands of Men.” He lets his impossibly wide vibrato choose the notes for him. He mumbles, gets stuck on a word, pushes himself until he cracks, hoots and hollers and goes a little gospel. Wherever he lands after slipping from his falsetto, he makes it work. He kneads at the line, “Will you stop running away from what is real and what is fake?” It’s idiosyncratic and without a shred of inhibition. On “Bow Down,” Cameron delivers the lynchpin line of “I was in LOVE and NOW I’m in HELL!” with the wild-eyed fervency of a hermit stumbling through town square. He cranks that energy up on “I Will Let You Down,” making his confounding ramblings of “sick one-eyed cows” utterly intriguing.

Balancing out Cameron’s consistent (and at times overconfident) unhinged-ery is a band with remarkable assurance. Geese “get” how each other play. They’ve been Geese in some form since they were sixteen, and Max and Cameron have played together even longer. Max delivers riveting performances through all of side two; hammering away at his snare on “Bow Down” and unleashing himself on an especially dynamic “I Will Let You Down.” While Cameron and Emily are predictable riffers, they make a good pair. When the mix favors him, Dominc DiGesu plays some intriguing lines.

The majority of Live At Third Man (all tracks but “Space Race” and the as-yet-unreleased “I Will Let You Down”) would appear on Getting Killed. The guitars are nailed down pretty well on “Taxes,” if skewing out-of-tune. I just can’t rock with the choir effect on the keys. The vocals don’t deviate much from the record. It’s fine. “Au Pays du Cocaine” just can’t deliver in a live setting. The perfectly-orchestrated crescendo on the studio LP might’ve set it up for failure. “Cocaine”’s strengths (and apparently its Achilles heel) are the confident arrangement and how diametrically-opposed its delivery is to the lyric. “Baby, you can change and still choose me,” “You can be free, just come home, please.” It might be pathetic if you haven’t been there yourself, so terrified of being alone that you’ll let just about any abhorrent behavior slide. “Cocaine” is equal parts cathartic and detached; the calm after a big, embarrassing cry. Every part of its Third Man performance is wracked with self-doubt. The guitars are equal parts tinny, cluttered, and wrung-out. The drumming is just confused. Bless that bassline, because the vocal is rough. Such are the realities of direct-to-acetate recording. You can’t punch in later!

Given that it initially served as Geese repellant and it’s my favorite thing they’ve done to date, I was worried about “Trinidad.” Having it as the set/album closer made it an even bigger risk. Disappointment seemed inevitable. The guitars’ squeeps and squawks do a lot to build the song’s tension, but if Geese push too hard too soon or not enough, it just won’t work. A lot of attention is given to the verse, “My son is in bed/My daughters are dead/My wife’s in the shed/My husband’s burning lead...” and rightfully so. “The killer awoke before dawn/He put his boots on…” The Oedipal nightmare. It works for a reason.

“Trinidad” converges upon Silence of the Lambs, heads in stoves, and unspoken tensions shared across kitchen counters in the second half of the verse:

“The rest are force-fed, or else baked into bread,

And nothing’s been said for four-and-a-half days.

When that light turns red, I’m driving away,”

Then, the blistering payoff: “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR!” Hollering a sentence that’d otherwise get you in serious shit with the feds as the chorus of your song has to be one of the greatest feelings in the world. I envy that. The final manic release is all Emily’s. Let the girl slam her guitar into the floor! Geese aren’t just comfortable with the idea of losing control, they relish in it. This quality makes “Trinidad” consistently better live than on Getting Killed.

Though the mix is conservative and struggles to balance Cameron's voice with literally everything else going on, the record itself can handle Geese’s controlled chaos. A lot of otherwise-great live albums are marred by a sub-par recording setup or too many “woo!”s. Shibby Poole and Wes Garland did a phenomenal job capturing Geese in the round at Third Man, especially on the stormy “I Will Let You Down.” The audience of twenty-somethings chanting “Geese! Geese! Geese! Geese!” between songs like a feathered frat party is charming. There’s virtually no surface noise, and there were no blemishes on my disc. Inscribed in the runout of side two: HONK HONK.

If you want a blow-the-doors-off experience with Geese, seek out their 4D Country EP and Alive & In Person. But if you didn’t get to see Geese live before their popularity car bomb went off, Live At Third Man is a good artifact. This is a band unsure about how to handle their new material, wholly unaware of their potential, and still untouched by a killer of beautiful bands: the hype.