Amsterdam’s Melkweg, June 2022: when Geese was becoming something else (and I was too close to see it)

(Note: I originally published this text on The Riff – Medium _ Feb 26, 2026).

One hour before Melkweg’s doors opened in Amsterdam, I found myself counting the infinite cigarette butts piled up across the street, debating whether or not to eat the Moroccan hash space cake.

I had this fixed idea while looking at the venue’s old show posters: that Melkweg is like a telescope that helps you observe different stages of musical celestial bodies. Lenses that show births, peaks, explosions, and the reinvention of stars.

Then I realized it was bigger than that: Melkweg means Milky Way in Dutch. The venue sits in an old milk factory, transformed into a youth culture space in the 70s. My telescope idea just became too small. In reality, I was entering a whole constellation of turning points.

As if the only requirement for a band to play there is to be going through some kind of transition. That moment when bands bring to the stage something that’s been worked on internally, almost as therapeutic eruptions in public.

It was there that U2 played their first show outside Ireland in October 1980, almost a week before releasing Boy, their debut album.

A still-unknown Nirvana came through with the Bleach tour in 1989.

In 2011, two days after Amy Winehouse’s death, Prince started a series of surprise shows at Melkweg and, reza lenda, he said “I got tears. I’m gonna have to get my shades on” before playing “Love is a Losing Game.”

The Cure, Pearl Jam, Lady Gaga, The Police, Rammstein, The Damned, Arctic Monkeys, Grateful Dead, Blondie, Smashing Pumpkins, Massive Attack… All passed through Melkweg’s sonic divans. A place where bands perform while testing themselves and provoking us. Not as future music legends, but as artists still figuring it out.

And there I was, waiting for the doors to open. Still counting thousands of cigarette butts on the ground, after eating the Moroccan hash space cake. Not knowing I was about to experience one of those chaotic gig nights: a show from Geese’s first album tour, Projector, in June 2022.

Geese at Melkweg, Amsterdam — 10/06/2022

Projector was an album that accompanied me quite a bit between 2021/2022. Released during the pandemic, it was the soundtrack to my exit from isolation. It had something tight and urgent in its grey, mathematical post-punk… that was kind of comforting. When you spend a lot of time in isolation, albums with open lyrics and musical themes that don’t resolve… become your best friends.

Even more so when it’s a New York band formed by New York kids. A city occupied by people from all over the world, from the most different cultures and talents. Bands of kids born and raised in this Babylon, who earn their space to expand the conversation, are always irresistible.

Despite lazy comparisons to The Strokes, Television, or other local figures, history would prove that Geese inaugurated a new chapter in New York. But none of that was on the radar in 2022. I’m still talking about Geese-in-formation. Nothing related to the hyped band, starring in hysteria, rankings, and sold-out shows of 2025/26.

Something was still germinating between them.

The telescope effect

This tour was marked by the presentation of the repertoire that would become part of 3D Country, released the following year, along with a change of direction: the band was starting a cruise through dusty roads of inspiration in 70s bands.

There wasn’t much interaction with the audience. The nods and gestures between them were more present, especially after improvisations. Cameron Winter was already deflecting linear interpretations of his lyrics while Max Bassin, Emily Green, and Dominic DiGesu searched for their own ways to extend the compositions and all the potential of the versions to the maximum… shattering all my expectations for this show.

I was there looking for something like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or Black Midi, but ended up seeing a show that reminded me of Zappa, Black Crowes, and Sly & The Family Stone. It was awesome… but almost the opposite of what I was expecting.

Did the space cake hit, or are they playing a really slow version of “Disco”? Que doidêra.
What did he say? Is the new song really called “3D Country”? Are they going to play country now?
Was that guy playing one of those keytars? Did those become cool again?
Do Dutch audiences dance to every song all the time?
How did I end up in this white theater room, with 200-something people and a fixed bleacher in the back that gave it an air of a school gym party?

The generation roulette was spun. I took this show and its questions with me. Let time digest it.

Geese were smart to position evolution and change as band characteristics, right at their beginning. If they release a next album of chamber pop, disco-punk, or bluegrass, it wouldn’t be totally unexpected. Reminds me of Faith No More in a way: during the 90s, we never knew what to expect from their new albums. It was always different.

Just like making each live performance unique, giving it its own life whenever they’re played. Changing one thing here, slowing down a rhythm there, and so on. It’s almost a digital-era update of what the Grateful Dead did with bootlegs. We’ll always be hearing the same songs for the first time.

And I only understood that night a year later… when listening to 3D Country.

I left the place zonzo as an astronaut looking for terra firma. Melkweg showed me a band mid-transformation. They abandoned the version of themselves that needed answers. What’s left is a band that changes every time you look at it. I was too close to recognize it in real time.

The recordings I made from the show are here:

Initiation Rites and the Beauty of Getting Killed

Three years later…

That disorientation wasn’t restricted to Amsterdam. It’s become the Geese experience. Every show catches audiences off guard, and it bothers a lot of people.

Search for two or three videos of the band playing “Taxes” at different shows. They’re always unique, longer or shorter, with inside jokes or a band member taking their part way too far. This was sharpened during Geese’s insane opening tour for King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

Just look at all the criticism the band received after their SNL performance.

Actually, criticism is becoming the new normal in their lives. You know a band has changed something in the scene when classy veterans like Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Jeff Tweedy, and Lee Ranaldo publicly admire them, while several other famous figures feel entitled to criticize them for free. Or just talk about them (I still haven’t figured out if Courtney Love likes them or not… and if Michael actually is Michael Stipe.)

Almost like a trial by fire. An initiation rite. Roasted.

And yet the band seems untouchable to all of it. The reason? They’re relatable. They don’t position themselves as rockstars or musical prodigies. Just kids learning to live, doing what they can to make music the way they believe in, and learning to live with it. They talk about life, the cost of making music, and mental health with the same ease. New Yorkers as fuck, in every aspect.

But back to the albums… I have a theory connecting 3D Country to Getting Killed.

By completely changing their path between Projector and 3D Country, the band picked a fight with all higher entities, instituting their own end of the world. This is declared in the opening track “2122,” followed by a journey of experiences and provocations, with open, anthological lyrics that treat everyday scenes that could be internal thoughts, reconciliations, or small talk at laundromats. And several sermons are disguised within the songs.

With Getting Killed, Geese had stopped pretending to be anything consistent… and died. Maybe in “Trinidad” with the car bomb? We’ll never know. The entire album has a calmer tone and deals with uncertainty as a permanent state. Not as something to fix, but as something to live inside. Almost like a summary of lessons learned… or that famous film that plays in your mind before you die. Is this the backdrop for “Long Island City Here I Come”? Again, vai saber. Thankfully.

What remains is a band that faced its own apocalypse before our eyes. Died. And is now ready to live.