Whether the levee broke last summer at the Peach Festival in Scranton, Pa., remains a point of debate. However you want to look at it, though, things changed on that late July afternoon. There they were, Goose, under auspicious sunlight, performing to a crowd of thousands.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you could see the signs of Goose’s rise in digital word-of-mouth very clearly around that time. It was a hell of a thing to watch: the link-sharing of live shows, the excitable comments on other bands’ message boards (“Goose is an amazing band,” ca. Aug. 13), the chatter over vape carts outside venues from coast to coast. The buzz around this funky band from the Northeast absolutely exploded toward the end of the 2019 festival season. Ever since, it seems like you can’t share a donut with someone in the jam scene without them trying to turn you onto Goose.
Everything just seemed to click, suddenly, without warning, at the Peach gig. Guitarist Rick Mitarotonda was sitting down onstage, his left knee wrapped in a brace, and the visual incongruity somehow magnifies the situation in retrospect. The musicians had sprouted quadruplet mustaches for the summer. It's a memorable look.
