Six years is a long time to be away, and for a while it was not clear Of Monsters and Men would come back at all. So there was something genuinely celebratory in the air at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Saturday, July 25, 2026, as the Icelandic folk-rock band returned to Vancouver on their Mouse Parade Tour — their first run behind All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade, the fourth album that ended a hiatus stretching back to 2019.
Opening the night was August Ponthier, whose warm, atmospheric songs made for a gentle, well-judged way into the evening and had the seated Queen Elizabeth crowd settled in and receptive by the time the headliner arrived.
When Of Monsters and Men took the stage, the years apart melted away in an instant. Co-vocalists Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Þórhallsson traded verses with the same intertwined, boy-girl warmth that made the band’s name, and the new material more than earned its place: “Dream Team,” “Mouse Parade” and “Ordinary Creature” slotted in with the widescreen, brass-flecked grandeur that has always been their signature. If anything, the time away seems to have deepened the songwriting.
Of course, the biggest roars came for the songs a whole room already knew by heart. “Dirty Paws” unfurled its storybook build, “King and Lionheart” swelled to a goosebump-raising peak, and “Crystals,” “Love Love Love” and the stomping “Alligator” showed off the full sweep of the band’s range — from hushed and intimate to arms-aloft euphoric.
And then, inevitably, “Little Talks.” The song that carried this band around the world remains a genuine communal event live — the entire Queen Elizabeth on its feet, every “hey!” bellowed back with a force that seemed to surprise even the band. It was the perfect exclamation point on a triumphant return: proof that after six years in the dark, Of Monsters and Men have lost none of their gift for turning a theatre into one big, joyful singalong.
