\n\t\tt\u2019s June 19 inside Madison Square Garden, six days after the first New York Knicks NBA triumph since 1973, two weeks before the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, and 35 minutes into Goose<\/a>\u2019s soundcheck at the iconic venue. The band is playing the first of two dates later that night, and their practice run goes for at least an hour. You see, bands that play four-hour-long, two-set shows do long-ass soundchecks.<\/p>\n
\n\tGoose hail from Wilton, Connecticut, a woodsy, affluent town about 90 minutes from New York City. Seeing as the band and their organization live and create in the area, they are part of the New York Metropolitan area and thus citizens in good standing of Knicks Nation. The members of Goose \u2014 singer\/guitarist\/frontman Rick Mitarotonda, secondary singer\/guitarist\/keysman Peter Anspach, bassist Trevor Weekz, and drummer Cotter Ellis \u2014 sat courtside this past April as the Knicks faced the Chicago Bulls; some in the entourage wear orange and blue jerseys and make easy conversation with MSG staffers, who are clearly still walking on air.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe MSG organization sees a future with the band: an LED display at the venue\u2019s third tier reads \u201cWELCOME BACK TO MSG, GOOSE,\u201d and clips from the finals are shown before tonight\u2019s proceedings \u2014 surely this is the first time the Knicks theme song \u201cGo New York Go New York Go\u201d has been played at a jam band show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u201dm generally not in tune with sports,\u201d says Mitarotonda, the band\u2019s primary creative wellspring, \u201cbut this time is maybe the first ever that I had been this into a big sports event. I\u2019d gone to Knicks games with my dad, who had been a basketball player, so this is a special time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n\tThe other dominant color scheme evident, just as counterintuitive as orange and blue, is the pink and yellow combination used for the cover of the band\u2019s new album Big Modern and which festoons the band\u2019s microphones and its light show. The most striking tune Goose runs though during soundcheck is \u201cSavenger,\u201d from the new record and which bespeaks parachute pants circa 1985 rather than a flowing peasant skirt. It\u2019s a taut mid tempo number redolent of No More Lies, jazz fusion keyboardist Jan Hammer\u2019s 1983 album with Journey\u2019s Neal Schon, although today it mutates into a jam that resembles a cut from Jeff Beck\u2019s Blow by Blow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n
\n\tThe sounds of Big Modern would easily appeal to listeners who, shall we say, don\u2019t fuck with jam bands, but very much do like songs with big, fat Peter Gabriel choruses like \u201cGood 2 Be\u201d and \u201cTorero,\u201d or frantic Devo-style critiques like \u201cMedia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMitarotonda is singularly focused, stopping the music a few times to discuss a finer point with his bandmates. He is lithe, resembling Little Feat\u2019s Lowell George if his habits were health-conscious and not the sort that felled him when he was one year younger than Mitarotonda. Ellis, the new guy \u2014 and not from Connecticut but Vermont \u2014 launches percussive salvos that suggest the lean, rangy frame of the Band\u2019s Levon Helm with the chops of Zappa\/Sting drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (he also frequently features a sartorial whimsy definitely redolent of Phish<\/a>\u2019s Jon Fishman). Weekz seems perpetually under their music\u2019s spell; after the soundcheck, while the team confers backstage about video walls that are unique to this run of MSG shows, he puts on headphones and practices long winding phrases on his custom bass guitar. And Anspach \u2014 not only a utility man, but the band\u2019s live MC \u2014 carries himself with the cheerful levity of Trey Anastasio.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tRick Mitarotonda<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tCotter Ellis<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tPeter Anspach<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tTrevor Weekz<\/p>\n \n\tA few hours later, as the band strides to the stage while \u201cDon\u2019t Stop til you Get Enough\u201d plays over portable speakers, its members are visibly enraptured in the moment. \u201cBefore you go onstage at MSG, you\u2019re definitely going to have butterflies that you don\u2019t have at other venues,\u201d says Anspach. Then, for the next four hours, Goose demonstrate why they earned their place as the next evolutionary step in the jam band ecosystem, emanating gently pulsing and finally exultant songs, complete with the discursive improvisations that thrill the Jam Nation assembled tonight in one of the world\u2019s most storied venues.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\tMSG sees a future in Goose because the band sold out this night, and the next (when 51 year-old Niantic Connecticut resident Paul Keuker would tragically fall to his death from a balcony), and in June 2025. Goose is easily the biggest band to come out of Fairfield County, and maybe Connecticut (New Haven\u2019s Carpenters may hold the state title, but were a duo, not a band; John Mayer, a Goose friend and Fairfield native, who has oddly never played with them, is the biggest solo artist from the state, with the possible exception of Michael Bolton). It\u2019s unprecedented in recent times for Connecticut to have its culture noticed at all as anything other than a boring afterthought<\/a>. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tThe group\u2019s proximity to New York means several things. First, they can draw \u2014 in 2025, they sold 280,000 tickets over 60 shows. Second, they can talk pizza (Connecticut has in the past decade promoted itself as \u201cthe Pizza capital of the United States,\u201d due to New Haven style \u201capizz\u201d pies). This may prompt eye rolls from New Yorkers, but no one can deny that the apizz style is an excellent Connecticut exponent,\u00a0just as no one can deny that this band, presently Connecticut\u2019s favorite sons, are pushing the jam band paradigm forward.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI grew up loving this kind of music,\u201d Mitarotonda says, \u201cand once I came of age and understood the ethos how these bands operate, I became enamored. But it is more of a framework than a stylistic dogma.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n