Live At Carnegie Hall

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There’s something funny about Geese’s Cameron Winter playing Carnegie Hall. On the one hand, he’s one of the more compelling songwriters of his generation, a guy who can mix the sacred and profane as effortlessly (and humorously) as anyone since Leonard Cohen. (And Cohen, for all the other artists Winter is compared to, is Winter’s closest aesthetic kin.) On the other…Carnegie Hall? Isn’t it a little stuffy for a cool young Brooklynite supposedly breathing new life into rock ’n’ roll? Yes. But in accepting the invitation, Winter joins a pantheon of artists like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Nina Simone, and in doing so makes an earnest—if slightly winking—bid at something more culturally elevated than indie-rock stardom, namely a classic songwriter taking shape in real time. (The fact that the performance was filmed by Paul Thomas Anderson for a theatrical release is maybe less winking.) The simpler the arrangements, the more apparent the influence of older forms of American music, from gospel (<b>“It All Fell in the River”</b>) and blues (<b>“Vines”</b>) to Appalachian ballads (<b>“Take It with You”</b>), Bruce Springsteen (<b>“Nina + Field of Cops”</b>) to Billy Joel (<b>“The Rolling Stones”</b>), all played with the lonesome ecstasy of that weird guy hammering away in his apartment down the hall. And while it’s clear Winter really <i>can</i> play the piano, what makes the performance electrifying is how intuitively he puts passion ahead of technique, letting the songs stretch out with the urgency of someone unloading their heart while their battery races to zero. This is how these songs were meant to be heard. <b>Our Favorite Moment:</b> It’s the end of <b>“$0,”</b> where Winter starts to ramble like someone having either an epiphany or a psychological breakdown, proclaiming, over and over again, the realness of God. “I wouldn’t joke about this,” he deadpans, the piano ringing out louder and louder. “I’m not kidding this time.” It’s a wonderful moment, manic and funny and sad and grand at the same time, and he plays it for absolutely everything it’s worth.

via Apple Music