The Growlers come back to Fort Collins for the first time since 2016

A decade after their last local show at the Mishawaka, the back-on-the-road band plays Old Town's Washington's on Wednesday, April 28.

The last time The Growlers played Fort Collins, it was June 25, 2016, at the Mishawaka Amphitheatre. Plenty has changed in town since then, including the room they're coming back to. The Growlers play Washington's on Wednesday, April 28, 2027, with the show starting at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale through eTix, following the Oct. 20 announcement.

Washington's holds about 900. For a band that has spent the past year selling rooms bigger than that, a Wednesday night in Old Town is close to a hometown-sized show, and that's the kind of ticket that disappears while people are still saying they'll get one.

The context is the comeback. The band's 2026 run was its first global tour since 2019, starting in Australia in January. By April, they were in New York, where NYS Music called the Brooklyn Steel show a long-awaited return. The road has kept going from there, including a return to Mexico. The Fort Collins date stretches that comeback into spring 2027, and it brings the band back to Northern Colorado after a decade away.

Last time it was the Mishawaka. This time it's an Old Town room that didn't exist as a venue back then.

That room is part of the story. Washington's took over the old Washington's Sports Bar and Grill, the Wash Bar, a roughly 30-year Old Town staple. The Bohemian Foundation, through its Laporte Venue arm, bought the building and rebuilt it as a music hall with a new sound and lighting system. It opened just in time to get caught by the pandemic; the Rocky Mountain Collegian noted that Arrested Development played there on Feb. 27, 2020, days before COVID-19 shut down live music. In the years since, it has become a fixture of the Fort Collins circuit, and Westword has it on its list of the best music venues in town.

The Mishawaka in 2016 was a river-canyon amphitheater show on a summer night. Washington's in 2027 is the opposite: indoors, downtown, close enough to the stage that the band's loose, swaying sets should feel up close. For anyone who saw them on the Poudre, that's a different kind of night. For a newer crowd who found the band during its time off the road, it might be the first real chance to see them nearby.

A midweek date in late April works for the college calendar, too. It's after the worst of the spring snow and before everyone scatters for summer.

Ten years is a long time between visits. Get your ticket, plan a walk through Old Town, and be there when the lights go down.

Sources: The Growlers, Fort Collins, Washington's – eTix (etix.prf.hn); The Growlers 2026 Australian tour – Soap Central (soapcentral.com); The Growlers' long awaited return hits Brooklyn Steel – NYS Music (nysmusic.com); The Growlers regresa a México – Grupo Animal (grupoanimal.mx); Washington's – RFMA (rfma.com); Rocky Mountain Collegian on Washington's (collegian.com); 21 best music venues in Fort Collins – Westword (westword.com); Behind the Sound Bar, the newest music venue in Fort Collins – Bandwagon Magazine (bandwagmag.com)