GEESE Covers Justin Bieber At Coachella

The above photo is a flashback to September 2024, when GEESE opened for King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard at The Gorge Amphitheatre in Eastern Washington. With its famously majestic backdrop, the venue, located in the Columbia River Basin, has a noticeably larger capacity than the majority of the stops they would hit on that tour. The Gorge show was special because it saw the insanely versatile Australian psych-rock loonies performing a 3-hour marathon set running the gamut of their extensive catalog. For GEESE, the entire tour was special; the NYC group are Gizz fans who were happy to be given the opportunity and hoping that their own material would appeal to their tourmates’ fan base. The Gorge show didn’t sell out, but at the time, it had to have been one of the biggest crowds GEESE had ever performed for. A lot has changed since then. Yesterday, they played Coachella.

I don’t really follow Coachella, but there are a couple of things that I’ve gathered simply by existing online and having an Instagram account. One is that people truly care about how they look, and whether or not it’s all some joke, there are endless videos from individuals claiming they’ve paid stylists thousands of dollars to dress them in little outfits that they will ultimately just sweat in and stain with suntan lotion and booze during the festival. Another big deal seems to be that Justin Bieber was headlining. I’m guessing he doesn’t perform that much anymore by the way that all these kids have been losing their shit over it, but, again… I don’t really know.

While Bieber took the mainstage last night, GEESE played a 6:15 pm set in the Gobi tent. From what I’m reading, it’s among the smallest stages at the festival, which is more conducive to their raucous live shows. A month before the Gorge, we saw them play a pair of completely unhinged sets on back-to-back nights at Pickathon Music Festival. The first show was in a barn, and the second night was on a tiny stage made of branches in the middle of the woods (full show HERE). The only other time we’ve caught them live was in a multi-purpose room at Western Washington University last November — some absolute hero/wizard at the liberal arts college pulled that booking off at the perfect time before the band’s stock skyrocketed. The smaller, packed spaces are becoming few and far between since GEESE has blown up and appeared on SNL. It’s somewhat ironic now that playing Coachella with more established and larger legacy acts on the bill actually helped them return to a more intimate setting on a side stage. Wading into one of the largest ponds available allowed them to play small fish again, even if just for the moment.

Coachella is always such a mixed bag of high-profile commercial pop acts interwoven amongst legendary artists like David Byrne and DEVO, with so much in between. There’s a clip of Sabrina Carpenter watching the GEESE perform, but the moment of their set that’s been making the rounds is footage of them playing their song “2122.” In the middle of the song, they inserted a cover of Justin Bieber‘s hit song “Baby” before coming back around to finishing it off. During their Pickathon woods set, the group detoured into the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd cut “Interstellar Overdrive” mid-song. Folding a cover into that particular song is a regular part of their live routine, but the choice of tune is still completely unexpected (and hilarious). The fact that Cameron Winter is in an Arik Roper SLEEP shirt, and bassist, Dominic Digesu, is rocking a graphic tee with an image of Japanese musician/producer Masayoshi Takanaka and his infamous surfboard guitar, only adds to the spectacle of the entire thing.

Clips of them venturing into the Bieber portion have popped up on social media, but I’m seeing some of them getting flagged and either muted or taken down. The clips that remain up seem to be very brief, perhaps in an effort to avoid any copyright claims. No matter, we found the full thing on the official Coachella YouTube page. Note that there’s no specific mention of the “Baby” cover in either the title or the caption.

You can check it out below.