Goose
June 20, 2025
Jacob’s Pavilion, Cleveland
By Rob McCune
Minutes before Goose was set to take the stage at Cleveland’s Jacobs Pavilion, an outdoor concert venue on the bank of the Cuyahoga River, under a canopy of stretched canvas, the sky opened up and a downpour commenced. For the faithful fans safe under cover, it felt a little like being inside a waterfall. As crews scurried to safeguard the stage from seepage, the start of the set slipped past the scheduled 7:30. Luckily, the rain drained out as the sun went down, the Goose was loosed, and the fans and the fun weathered the storm.
The American jam band, in the camp of The Grateful Dead and Phish, were true troopers. They could have called it off. They might have done so legitimately considering some of that stage equipment definitely got wet, and that could be dangerous. This was the second of a two-night gig in Cleveland, so it could even be said that not all of the fans would be left empty-handed without it. Undoubtedly many of the fans in the crowd on the second night were also there the first night.
But Goose never gave up the goose.
In fact, they emerged triumphant, with the perfect trumpet to herald their sticktoitiveness: A cover of Blind Melon’s “No Rain.” I have to think that this song was added to the set, as the opener, in response to the weather. I’d like to think the audible was called in those very rainy minutes before the show was set to start. Even if it was made on the bus on the way to Cleveland, when someone smart and forward-thinking thought to look at the weather forecast.
It’s just more rock-n-roll that way. Even if it didn’t happen that way, it will happen that way in the movie version.
As with just about every song on the set list, Goose sparked lightning with a 15-minute jam on “No Rain” that had the antennaed and tie-died crowd swaying. As amazing to behold as these seasoned and studied musicians are on stage, so are the fans themselves, who are colorfully costumed to show their unbridledly goofy devotion to this band. Many squeezed into the front of the standing-floor section had traveled with the band, and no doubt would have been disappointed to miss even one of two in the same city. There’s a real community around Goose, and it’s vibrant, considerate, large and in charge.
It’s also a good thing that there were no opening acts for these shows. Goose jammed for 2-and-a-half hours, after a 20-minute-later start, on 13 songs including the encore. (That’s an average of 11-and-a-half minutes per song.) After doing essentially the same thing, with a totally different setlist, the night before. Five hours of music on 25 songs. That doesn’t leave much room for an opener.
For night two in Cleveland, the setlist included four cover songs, including “No Rain,” though the Blind Melon one is the only one I was familiar with. The others – “Fish in the Sea” by Fat Freddy’s Drop, “Amongster” by Polica and “Pancakes” by Great Blue – came in what essentially was the second set of the second night of this gig, which included an intermission halfway through each show. That Goose devotes so much of their stage time to the music of others are signs of maturity, confidence and good nature.
The set also included songs from three of the band’s seven studio albums – including the beautiful, bittersweet “How It Ends” and the heartfelt harmony of “Red Bird” from their new 2025 release “Everything Must Go.” The band turned up the energy with party anthem “Flodown,” off the 2021 record “Shenanigans Nite Club,” and leaned into the groove with “Tumble” from 2022’s “Undecided” LP.
An encore of “So Ready” left the crowd still wanting more, after two nights in Cleveland that proved both Goose and their fans are so ready for anything.
Rob McCune is Every_Thing_After_Photo on Instagram, where he posts his concert photography and reviews, as well as clips from the latest Every.Thing.After podcast, which is available to download on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
