Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles is home to a number of deceased stars and visionaries alike. It seems only fitting that amongst the buried legends of the past, a new talent takes center stage between the palm trees and wide streets that shape the city.
Geese, headed by frontman Cameron Winter, rounded out their triple-header weekend in one of Los Angeles’ most eccentric venues on Oct. 17, playing to a crowd standing on well-trodden grass and packed dirt alongside hundreds more laid out on blankets stretched across the lawn.
Forming in 2016 as high school friends, the band exploded with their late 2025 album, “Getting Killed,” that brought them to worldwide acclaim.
Nowadays it seems like no one can stop talking about Geese. The band has drawn a diverse crowd of fans through nonstop praise, ranging from college radio stations buzzing to play their indie-rock sound to older rock fans connecting with a sound they are happy to enjoy again.
Their rise to fame has not been without criticism, however. Being questioned about their success in WIRED’s article “The Fanfare Around the Band Geese Actually Was a Psyop,” led to the legitimation of many doubts about just how popular the band could really be.
The article focused on the band’s partnership with a marketing company that seemed to be artificially creating content to hype the band’s online presence. Then, the narrative centered around the band’s astonishing rise to success, calling in claims that the band was an industry plant and questioned the possibility of such levels of stardom being achieved so quickly.
In my experience, either everyone at their show is a robot or Geese is really that good.
In a city so accustomed to the legends of rock music like Los Angeles, Geese was welcomed and celebrated with their three back-to-back sold-out performances. Lines began to form hours before the band took the stage, and as soon as crowds were allowed in, droves of people marched to the venue dividing themselves amongst the merchandise booths and the stage.
Hoodies, sweatshirts and bumper stickers were practically flying off the shelves featuring Geese’s standard tongue-in-cheek merch design mimicking the classic ‘I Love NY’ shirts that have long been a tourist staple. A fan favorite seemed to be the bumper sticker that read “Geese Is For Lovers,” referencing the state of Virginia’s iconic slogan.
The show opened with a hypnotic guitar performance by Bill Orcutt. Orcutt is 64-years-old and touts a substantial, puffy white beard. His age does not prohibit fantastic playing, however, as the guitarist played several near 10-minute ballads without uttering a single word.
Orcutt let his instrument speak for him, only shouting occasionally between songs with words too indistinct to make out. He seemed to sense the anticipation building within the crowd for the main act, but dispelled their waiting with an onslaught of persistent shredding.
He played to his heart’s content and echoed the sounds reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. The magnitude of his electric guitar set the tone for the opener, but his mysterious presence seemed to be felt among the crowd — many expressing confusion over the mystifying set. It was clear that among the crowd at the show, not many crowd members were familiar with his work, but this was sure an introduction that would get them listening.
After a long wait, the four people the whole night was built around appeared behind the draped cloths adorning the background of the stage and took their places.
Without hesitation, Winter began the creeping keyboard notes of “Long Island City Here I Come,” and was later complimented by the likes of guitarist Emily Green, bassist Dominic DiGesu and drummer Max Bassin.
From the moment they stepped onto stage, the electricity of the band lit up the crowd and people began to move erratically. Geese played a range of hits from “Getting Killed” to “3D Country.”
“2122,” one of their more uptempo songs from “3D Country,” gave way for crowd surfing, mosh pits and a ceremony of fans singing along. “I See Myself,” another top song from the same album, paused the crowd for a moment as they stopped to join Winter in a chorus of his lyrics.
Throughout the night Geese fired up the crowd, then pumped the brakes abruptly with a mix of songs across their repertoire. Fiery songs acted as waves crashing along a shoreline, then retreated to make way for more melodic tunes, like their most popular song “Au Pays Du Cocaine,” that helped to sedate the crowd for a few minutes before jumping into yet another elbow-filled extravaganza with movement akin to an overcrowded trampoline park.
Adding a bit of flavor to the whole experience, several inflatable geese were tossed around the crowd, with the biggest being impossibly large in scale, unexpectedly decking fans in the face during the most tender of moments.
It is difficult to ascertain what exactly makes Geese so special, perhaps it is their ability to connect rock fans of all ages or their frontman’s uniquely grimey vocal… or maybe it is a psyop. All that can be sure is that this night in L.A. was filled to the brim with joy, people smiling despite being packed in like sardines pushed up against the barricade, amidst suffocation and sweaty bodies, the crowd found the gospel of Geese to be their guiding light, with phones and countless eyes gazed up at the stage.
