rooks Nielsen celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Growlers' Chinese Fountain album with a 2024 solo tour featuring his new band. Nielsen founded The Growlers in 2006 but after several groundbreaking albums, creating their own festival, and years of successful tours the band broke up in 2020 after multiple allegations of sexual assault were made against them. Nielsen's public apology marked the end of The Growlers but it also signified the beginning of a blossoming solo career and an opportunity to keep The Growlers' music alive.
After seeing Brooks Nielsen's new band perform for a densely packed crowd at Chicago's House of Blues in October 2024, it is blatantly clear that fans still love Brooks and the music he made with The Growlers. They love his voice and his unique lyrics that can explain so much emotion with a few words. According to a 2023 interview with Nielsen, many fans claim that his music even saved their lives, "Most people have a story. ‘I wanted to kill myself and then I heard your record’... It’s been some real shit. They recognize, ‘Oh you’ve been through some shit. You can help me’ "
The plight of the modern music fan is dealing with the reality that musicians are not infallible gods and yet they help us deal with our emotions. Musicians are not perfect people but they can make the world feel like a better place. I wish I could just talk about Nielsen's amazing solo work and the fact that he is still an inspiring songwriter and performer but it would be odd to ignore the elephant in the room. This is a portion of Nielsen's apology from July 2020:
I take full responsibility and accountability for the behavior of all Growlers’ band members, past and present. Most recently including lack of judgement in arranging a male stripper as an end-of-tour prank to dance for the great Arrow De Wilde, who I admire so much as a person, artist and performer. This was a horrible idea that turned out even worse.
To Arrow: I was supposed to take care of you. I was supposed to protect you. I let you, your bandmates and your family down. For that, I am forever sorry. I am deeply saddened that I’ve lost your friendship and trust. I hope that one day you can forgive me.
In the same apology, Nielsen let fans know that Matt Taylor would be "taking temporary leave from the band" because other allegations were made about him specifically. He also pledged to raise awareness and financially support the East Los Angeles Women’s Center. Nielsen was honest and sincere in his statement to lifelong fans which may be the reason his solo work is doing so well.
Nielsen has released four full length albums since The Growlers broke up and they all show a maturing mind that is still embarking on a beautiful exploration of the human experience. His live shows are still incredibly entertaining as well. The Chinese Fountain Live tour featured a nearly two hour set that was split between his new material and playing the CF album all the way through. There were many in the crowd that sang along to Nielsen's new stuff while others anxiously memorized the lyrics so they could re-listen to the song later. But when Nielsen began to play The Growlers tunes, an electric shock seemed to pulsate through the crowd. Everyone seemed to sing along to the chorus of Going Gets Tough, Black Memories and more. These are songs that have been the soundtrack to so many people's lives, songs that helped people define their existence. The Chinese Fountain Live Tour ended in Chicago and Nielsen mentioned that he didn't know if this sort of show would ever happen again but he has another tour featuring Growlers music coming up.
You can catch Nielsen playing six shows of all Growlers music during his upcoming Helloween Tour in Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, LA and more. Despite a rocky history, Nielsen is making the people happy with his new tunes and singing the old songs that many have come to love.
