If you even remotely follow what’s going on in indie rock in 2025, I probably don’t need to introduce Cameron Winter. But in case you don’t, here are the essentials;
Cameron Winter is a musician from Brooklyn, New York. He is the frontman of a four-member rock band Geese, with whom he’s released three studio albums over the last 4 years. Well, technically four, but the band’s first full-length A Beautiful Memory is not on streaming services and they don’t count it as their first album anyway. Their 2023 sophomore album 3D Country generated considerable buzz, and right at the end of 2024, Cameron released his first solo album. Despite its somewhat unfortunate release date—after most of the end-of-year lists had already been written—Heavy Metal became a sleeper hit, and was by many, myself included, considered an instant classic. (I wrote about it twice.) With his songwriting skills sharpened during the solo effort, he and the band channeled his growth on Geese’s third album, this year’s much revered, and immediately universally acclaimed Getting Killed. This December, both the Geese and his solo record (since it was greatly overlooked last year) can be found on a majority of 2025’s end-of-year and best-of lists. Oh, and he is just 23 years old.
He’s been compared to the likes of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Julian Casablancas and many, many more. I make any more of these comparisons to the Great Male Singer-Songwriters here because I think it’s been done enough, and besides, you can go to the comments section of any of his YouTube videos and find more of them yourself.
I arrived quite early before the start of the show (there was no opener), but still slightly after doors. I knew I wanted to take a spot on the balcony, which I did, and then spent over an hour people watching as the crowd poured in. I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of young people, teenagers. And not only that, they were there with their parents (mostly dads), who seemed just as equally interested to be at the show as their children were. A heartwarming sight. The rest of the audience was more or less who you’d expect to be at an indie-rock show (or at a show of an artist who shares the genre’s audience).
On a barebones stage, in front of a black curtain backdrop, there is nothing else but a grand piano, a chair, two stage monitors, and some stage lights. Possibly the most minimal setup of any sold out show I’ve been to. The stage at TivoliVredenburg’s Ronda hall is (and I say this with no ill intent), compared to the other venues Cameron is playing on this short solo tour, architecturally and visually unremarkable. I kept wondering why on earth they didn’t book him in a church-type venue, or hell, even a real church. But all my doubts were laid to rest as soon as the house lights went out.
He walks on stage and the room erupts in applause, then quiets down, and remains so for the rest of the night (with the exception of loud cheers between the songs and an occasional chuckle at some of the funnier lyrics). He opens with Try as I May and immediately enthrals and grips us, and doesn’t let us go for the rest of the evening. He reworks the arrangements of songs off of Heavy Metal, the two singles released prior, and a few yet unreleased songs, lit by a single spotlight. The stage’s setup was perfect.
Cameron’s voice pierces through the air and completely mesmerises. Whatever recording you’ve heard of his songs, or even live performances, let me assure you, they do not do him the justice he deserves. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great (and especially the recent From The Basement session – I don’t think any Geese recording has ever sounded better). I just think no recording device can capture just how visceral his songs feel live.
There were a few moments when I could almost feel myself wanting to think something along the lines of “man, that sounds kind of rough,” but was then immediately pulled out of my head, and back into the room, and experienced all of it right there and then, and turned around to thinking “oh, yeah, I get it now, sorry I’d even considered thinking anything like that.”
He adapts the already minimal arrangements for the solo setting, stripping them down to the barest of bones possible. One of my absolute favourite moments during the show was during Drinking Age. During the third verse, in the album version, the songs opens up, takes a breath and starts to swell as horns come in quietly while Cameron describes a mundane scene: “Table by the door / Wallet on the ground / Bag of rubber bands.” When I first heard that part during the Kimmel performance, I thought the song could not get any more beautiful than that. And I was right. But what I didn’t think was that the song could get more devastating and visceral. Instead of swelling, the solo performance now includes an urgent high piano note, then a desperate slam on the low notes, and then. Devastating silence. I heard it and I understood.
When I first wrote about Heavy Metal, I said that I didn’t really get it, but I did feel it. I think I get it just a tiny a bit more now, but I mostly I feel it more deeply. I think he will always lean into the absurd, and every time I’ll listen, I’ll get it just a tiny bit more. But I sincerely hope that I never, ever fully get it.
I obviously can’t speak for every person in the room, but here’s what I’d like to believe; we all knew, the whole time, that we were witnessing something indescribably special. An artist who’d just broken through, at the peak of his career so far, who had just unlocked the door to his highest potential. Yet he remains seemingly shy, humble, and unpretentious, while (hopefully) aware, that this is his victory lap to cap off a frankly insane year. His songs feel like they’d existed since forever, like they are already part of the long-standing singer-songwriter-piano-man-canon. I think Cameron Winter is already an outstanding, and dare I even already call him singular, artist, but I also know that there are unimaginable heights he is yet to reach as a songwriter and as a musician. And I am beyond excited to follow along.
Was the show in at least some ways transcendental? Yeah, I think so. Could God be real? Possibly. He’s real enough for Cameron to write all those songs about Jesus and God and the devil. And besides, why would I (or he) joke about something like that?