The Wiltern and its faithful rock inhabitants were shaken to the core at last night’s Imagine Dragons sold out show. This is the band’s first ever headlining tour, where just a year ago the band was playing half empty rooms, sleeping on friends couches and just scraping by. Imagine Dragons has been touring almost non stop since forming in 2008, but the wave of success has just begun for the Las Vegas quartet.
The band essentially, slayed the audience, putting on a tour de force performance as lead singer, Dan Reynolds beat a 6-foot-tall, Taiko tribal drum throughout the night. The band opened the show with Reynolds banging the monolithic drum on the intro to “Round And Round” sending vibrations that you could feel in your chest and reverberated around the landmark theater to get things started. The band slipped into, “Amsterdam” where the humble 25 year old Reynolds, danced across the stage, smiling ear to ear in the process.
The stage was tree lined decorated where beehive-shaped lanterns hung from the branches. Each of the lanterns would flicker along to the drum beats and the swirling rhythms of guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee, and drummer Daniel Plaztman.
Imagine Dragons gave an energy fueled performance during their 14 song set, which demonstrated the strength of their debut album, Night Visions (released in September), as each song performed could be a radio single. Before Night Visions, the band released two EP’s prior, Imagine Dragons EP and Hell And Silence EP. They returned to the studio in 2011 where they made another EP, It’s Time before signing to Interscope Records in November 2011.
Reynolds introduced their latest single “Radioactive,” as a song about realizing your place in the world. And it was yet another epic sing along, where Reynolds would hold out his microphone and let the audience take over.
The band knows how to craft epic choruses and the emotionally charged song, “Bleeding Out” was no exception, as was, Demons, a song about overcoming hardships in a relationship. A bit of a departure in sound from their other songs, the band ignited a dance party with the upbeat Caribbean style song, “On Top Of The World.”
Before closing out the show with the encore, “Nothing Left to Say,” the band led the crowd into a handclap and mandolin sing along with their hit, “It’s Time.” The infectious song was the perfect night cap with Reynolds once again, thanking the crowd and reassuring them that they would be back again soon after they set off on their European leg of their nearly sold out Night Visions Tour.
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