Geese live in London: the most electrifying band on the planet

When Geese’s London date in support of third album Getting Killed was announced, it was for a venue nearly three times smaller than the Hammersmith Apollo they stride out into tonight.

The overwhelming success of the album, boosted by the simultaneous rise of frontman Cameron Winter’s solo career with sleeper hit LP Heavy Metal, means their touring schedule can barely keep up with the rabid appetite of an exponentially growing fanbase. Even with this significant upgraded show, two more sold out gigs at the Troxy, totalling over 6,000 tickets, await at the end of the summer.

Getting Killed paired scything, aggressive punk music with tender balladry, and the live show is also one of two halves. Some songs from the album – ‘Islands of Men’, ‘100 Horses’, ‘Bow Down’ – are twisted into new shapes with dissonant noise from superb guitarist Emily Green and a powerhouse behind the kit in Max Bassin. In front of them, Winter is a crazed and magnetic narrator; it’s a delightful if strange world where “there’s a bomb in my car!” (‘Trinidad’), “you should be shame’s only daughter” (‘Cobra’) and “I’ve got half a mind to just pay for the lobotomy” (‘Half Real’) are sung back as terrace anthems.

On the flip side, album highlights ‘Cobra’, ‘Au Pays du Cocaine’ and ‘Taxes’ are played faithfully to the recorded versions and received like generational anthems by the most frenzied crowd the famous Apollo has surely seen in years and years. Eye-wateringly expensive pints are thrown throughout from the back of the standing section into a rapidly swelling mosh pit that, by the time of closer ‘Trinidad’, sees literally thousands swaying back and forth in delirium.

The desperate rush to anoint new kings of rock’n’roll has been ongoing ever since the rise of The Strokes – a band Geese are often described as the heirs to – a quarter of a century ago, and led to many false dawns. Here, though, is a band for whom none of the hype feels contrived or try-hard, either from the band or their legion of devotees – they’re a group to build an entire identity around (with the loving memes and backlash inevitably following).

While Getting Killed continues to gather momentum like a boulder hurtling down a mountainside, maybe most exciting here is the preview of raucous new song ‘Apollo’. “I’m going to the moon!” Winter sings over and over to end the driving rock song. “And you’re buying the ticket, motherfucker!” Indeed, stratospheric is the only word for it.

Geese played:

‘Husbands’
‘Getting Killed’
‘Crusades’
‘Islands of Men’
‘Half Real’
‘2122’
‘100 Horses’
‘Cobra’
‘I See Myself’
‘Cowboy Nudes’
‘Bow Down’
‘Au Pays du Cocaine’
‘Taxes’
‘Long Island City Here I Come’
‘Apollo’
‘Trinidad’