The Growlers are coming to the Rialto Theatre on April 18th, and this one has been a long time coming.
Six years is a long time to wait. The last time The Growlers toured was in 2019, and the world looked considerably different. Since then, frontman Brooks Nielsen kept the creative engine running on his own terms, releasing five solo albums and playing hundreds of shows worldwide. That prolific stretch closed out in style: two sold-out nights at the Hollywood Palladium on October 30 and 31, 2025, a clear signal that the appetite for this band had never gone anywhere. Now the full band is back, and they’re doing it properly, with a world tour spanning Australia, the UK, Europe, and North America.
The Southern California outfit have spent nearly two decades building one of rock’s more durable cult mythologies. They came up out of Dana Point and Costa Mesa playing surf-soaked, reverb-drenched garage music that didn’t quite sound like anything else and eventually gave that sound a name: Beach Goth. Over seven studio albums, the palette kept expanding without the identity ever blurring. Chinese Fountain brought polish and ambition. City Club, produced by Julian Casablancas, pushed them further into dark, danceable territory. They’ve also worked with Dan Auerbach, and their early tours, conducted aboard a school bus named Lizzie, became the stuff of legend. Through all of it, Brooks Nielsen‘s voice, a baritone that sits somewhere between crooner and misfit poet, remained the fixed point.
The 2026 comeback arrives with fresh music. New singles “Crisis” and “Feel My Funk” deliver exactly what longtime fans would hope for: groove, grit, and that unmistakable sense that nobody else could have made this. A recent archival release, the Beach Goth Tape, shows the band dialling in both nods to the past and bold moves ahead. Whatever comes next, the foundation is clearly in good shape.
Live, The Growlers have always been something else. Nielsen’s stage presence, part crooner, part carnival barker, has a way of turning a room into something communal and slightly unhinged. The Rialto is a good room for it.
Tickets are available now via GoodShows and TheGrowlers.com or at the Rialto Theatre box office.
WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS
We’re giving away one pair of tickets to the show. To enter, follow Montreal Rocks on Instagram, find the Growlers post and tag a friend you’d bring with you in the comments below.
Winner announced April 15.
