The Growlers book two nights at Irving Plaza, their first Manhattan shows since 2019

Back on the road after a six-year break, the Growlers return to Manhattan for an April 17–18 weekend stand at Irving Plaza.

The last time the Growlers played Manhattan, it was a September night on the lawn at Central Park SummerStage. The next time will be a Saturday-and-Sunday stand on Irving Place, and an awful lot of road went untraveled in between.

The Growlers play Irving Plaza on Saturday, April 17, and Sunday, April 18, 2027, with both shows starting at 7pm. Tickets run $59.50–$109 through Ticketmaster for Saturday and Sunday. Both nights were announced Oct. 20. They are the band's first Manhattan dates since Sept. 14, 2019, at SummerStage. Irving Plaza holds about 1,200, a much tighter fit than a park.

The reason for the gap is simple: the band stepped away. When the Growlers came back this year, Omaha Magazine described them as back on the road for the first time in six years. The 2026 return started in Australia in January and worked its way through Europe and the US, with a West Coast run this fall and an Oct. 3 hometown show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

New York got a first look in April, when NYS Music covered what it called the band's "long awaited return" at Brooklyn Steel. That was on the other side of the river, which is why these Irving Plaza nights are still the first time in more than seven years the band has played the island itself.

The touring lineup NYS Music reported has Brooks Nielsen up front with guitarist JD Carrera, keyboardist Cole Riddle, drummer Richard Gowen, bassist Max Kaplan and guitarist Thomas Hunter. Nielsen spent the hiatus on solo work, so the people at Irving Plaza will be seeing a singer with a few more years of his own records behind him than the one who played SummerStage.

There is one more detail worth noting. Ticketmaster's listings for both nights carry the name of City Club, the band's fifth studio album, which Cult Records released on Sept. 30, 2016. That record turned ten this fall. The band hasn't said, in anything we found, how much of the night will lean on it, so treat the listing as a hint rather than a set list. Either way, it suggests a band that is thinking about its own history as it comes back.

Two shows on a weekend is also a sign of confidence. A band that hasn't played Manhattan in seven years could have booked one bigger room and hoped. Instead the Growlers chose a mid-size club and doubled it, which tends to make for looser, sweatier nights, and gives anyone who misses Saturday a second chance on Sunday.

If you were on that SummerStage lawn in 2019, this is the one you've been waiting for. Pick a night, or make a weekend of it.

Sources: The Growlers (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); The Growlers at Central Park SummerStage, 9/14/19 (Live for Live Music) (liveforlivemusic.com); Omaha Magazine on The Growlers' return (omahamagazine.com); The Growlers Long Awaited Return Hits Brooklyn Steel (NYS Music) (nysmusic.com); The Growlers at the Greek Theatre (Nederlander Concerts) (nederlanderconcerts.com); The Growlers 2026 Australian tour (Soap Central) (soapcentral.com); The Growlers at Irving Plaza, Apr 17 – tickets (Ticketmaster) (ticketmaster.evyy.net); The Growlers at Irving Plaza, Apr 18 – tickets (Ticketmaster) (ticketmaster.evyy.net); The Growlers at Irving Plaza (JamBase) (jambase.com)