GeeseRankins Wood, Electric Picnic★★★★★“It’s a pleasure to be supporting Geese ... many hours before Geese,” Eduardo Pinheiro of Burglar announces halfway through his band’s set on the Rockshore stage at 1pm on Sunday. The wisecrack speaks volumes.Many bands are playing Electric Picnic this weekend, but few command interest like Geese. Beloved by Cillian Murphy – an occasional DJ on BBC Radio 6 Music – the New Yorkers formed 10 years ago, but their fourth album, Getting Killed, which they released in 2025, is the one that has catapulted them to a new level of attention.There have been rumours about their rise all being an industry stunt, their virality engineered by a marketing company, but anyone with a pair of working ears can hear why they’re special. Somewhere between The Strokes, Lou Reed and Pavement, they’re like an unexpectedly tasty morsel you fished out of a dustbin, in an old pizza box you shouldn’t really be going near, and all the more delicious for being so unexpected.Cameron Winter, their frontman, has a way of making the navigation through a song sound entirely fresh: you don’t know how it will proceed; you only know that where the band find themselves is sonically thrilling. And the fans are here for them tonight, pouring into Rankins Wood a full half-hour before they take the stage at 9pm. Electric Picnic 2026: the crowd for Geese in the Rankins Wood Tent on Sunday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Electric Picnic 2026: Geese in the Rankins Wood tent on Sunday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Electric Picnic 2026: Geese on the Rankins Wood stage on Sunday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Electric Picnic 2026: Cameron Winter of Geese on the Rankins Wood stage on Sunday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw So many fans, in fact, that even the two plastic inflatable geese, strung up on a stick, that one punter is waving comically though the crowd can’t hide a frisson of danger.“I’m feeling a little crushed,” a man to the right of me says as, temporarily hidden by dry ice, a giant white GEESE sign floating like a space ship above their heads, the band take to the stage.He’s not wrong. Three songs in, the crowd lifts to a frenzy and suddenly The Irish Times realises that one must pogo if one is to survive. Hands shoot up and a huge gap appears in the audience. The band fall silent, pausing. There’s a moment of confusion. Is everyone safe? Then the crowd yell their safe song: Aslan’s Crazy World, specifically the line “It’s all right.” Thus assured, the band flood the arena with noise. We pogo. We bounce. People get up on each other’s shoulders. It’s exhilarating.From then on it’s a succession of confidently delivered songs, Husbands and Cobra in particular triggering mass singalongs. Then comes Au Pays du Cocaine, with its delicate, tinkly, children’s-jewellery-box music by way of The Velvet Underground. “You can be free ... It’s all right,” Winter sings. “I’m all right.” And the crowd sing it back to him. And we are.A stellar Electric Picnic performance.For all the latest festival news, reviews and more, download the Irish Times app