Goose Welcome 2025 with New Year’s Formal Affair, Cover The Flamingoes, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and More

Photo Credit: Stevo Rood

Happy New Year!

Last night, Dec. 31, Goose set into 2025 with a proper celebration, closing out its first annual New Year’s Formal Affair with an action-packed performance at Austin, Texas’ Moody Center. For the second show in its highly anticipated two-night engagement, the Connecticut quintet served up a setlist that showcased its genre-bending prowess, mixing certified classics, relative rarities and an eclectic array of covers to cap off an exceptional year of performance.

Goose began its New Year’s Eve show with the Great Blue original “Pancakes,” which set the show off with an exuberant, high-flying jam and cleared a path to the rapid acceleration of “Everything Must Go.” After bridging the longtime favorite drive into the rarely heard Shenanigans Nite Club album closer “The Labyrinth,” the band tested new material with a debut cover of The Flamingoes’ classic “I Only Have Eyes for You,” which saw them twist the doo-wop standard with an intricate, atmospheric approach. They stayed in this mellow groove with the stirring follow-up of “Slow Ready,” then channelled all that slow-burning heat into an explosive first frame finale with “Tumble.”

After the set break, Goose returned with its second-ever cover of Tevin Campbell’s “I2I,”  famously featured in the soundtrack for The Goofy Movie, which they first performed in 2019.  This second highly positive intro sent the band into the jam centerpiece of the evening: a segued four-track series of fan favorites. The ever-adventurous “Hungersite” gave way to a treatment of “Big Modern!” that capped off Dec. 30’s unfinished version, followed by the intro jam of “Flodown” and their second cover of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes’ “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” In the aftermath of that stunning sprint, Goose moved on to the mood-boosting essential “Hot Tea” before closing out the second set with “Thatch.” Once the lights went down, the band returned to the stage to stride boldly into the new year with “Factory Fiction.”

Goose will take a solid month off before returning to the road for its winter tour, which begins on Feb. 6 at Milwaukee’s Miller High Life Theatre. For tickets and more information, visit goosetheband.com/tour. Rewatch the excitement of the New Year’s Formal Affair with official streams on nugs.net.

Read on for the full setlist from New Year’s Eve.

Goose

Moody Center – Austin, Texas

12/31/24

Set I: Pancakes, Everything Must Go, Drive > The Labyrinth, I Only Have Eyes For You*, Slow Ready, Tumble

Set II: I2I+, Hungersite → Big Modern!# > Flodown& > Don’t Leave Me This Way@, Hot Tea, Thatch

Encore: Factory Fiction

Notes:

* The Flamingos. FTP.

+ Tevin Campbell.

# Partial completion of version from 12/30/24.

& Intro jam only.

@ Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. Ending only.

Setlist via elgoose.net.