For the better part of a decade, one of the great open questions in American rock was whether we would ever see Alabama Shakes again. Brittany Howard had gone off to make acclaimed solo records, the band had gone quiet, and a reunion felt like a long shot. So there was a real charge of anticipation at Vancouver’s open-air Freedom Mobile Arch on Sunday, July 26, 2026, as the reunited Shakes rolled into town on a warm summer night - back on a stage together for the first time in years, and sounding like they had never left.
Any Alabama Shakes show lives or dies on Brittany Howard, and hers remains one of the most staggering voices in modern music - a raw, gospel-forged instrument that can drop to a whisper and then erupt into a full-throated howl in the space of a single line. From the opening songs she was a force of nature, wringing every ounce of feeling out of the material while her guitar snarled underneath. “Future People” and “Always Alright” hit with a swaggering, greasy groove, and the crowd - many of whom clearly never thought they would get to see this - roared back at every peak.
The band around her was locked in tight. Heath Fogg’s guitar and Zac Cockrell’s bass gave the songs their deep, Muscle Shoals-adjacent soul - that irresistible blend of blues, garage rock and Southern R&B that made the band’s name in the first place. The Sound & Color material - the shimmering title track, the slinky “Don’t Wanna Fight,” the enormous “Gimme All Your Love” - sounded even richer live than on record, Howard stretching and bending each one to its limit.
Inevitably, it was “Hold On” that sent the night over the top - the song that started it all, greeted like an old friend, the whole outdoor crowd singing along under the summer sky. By the end it was hard not to feel a little emotional about the whole thing: a band this special, this singular, back where they belong. On the evidence of this Vancouver night, the reunion is no nostalgia exercise - Alabama Shakes still sound like nobody else, and Brittany Howard still sings like the roof might come off. Welcome back.
