Photographs by Dale Benvenuto
The Imagine Dragons locomotive stormed through Toronto last night and rocked the Air Canada Centre with their Into The Night tour. The evening began with opening band The Naked and Famous who brought their brand of synth pop to hype the crowd up. While their set started slowly with people causally strolling to their seats, they managed to pick it up a few notches and got people dancing. Playing “Punching in a Dream” early in their set worked nicely as people recognized that song from their debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You. While their records are mellower synth pop, they brought a crazy amount of energy, something akin to the way The Joy Formidable plays. They ended their set with a fantastic version of Young Blood which was really fun to watch. I sometimes feel bad for opening bands at large venues like the ACC, as I feel they would tear the roof off in a smaller venue where they were the headliner.
Imagine Dragons came out and basically played their full debut album Night Visions for the amped up crowd. The crowd was the loudest for their hit songs It’s Time, Bleeding Out and Demons. Lead singer Dan Reynolds would talk to the crowd between songs and seemed to be near tears most of the time. He would talk about how music was his life and going to concerts was, and still is, his favourite thing to do, as such he always has to give everything to the crowd. At one point Reynolds mentioned how the band had circled the Toronto date on their calendars because they wanted to play a song by their favourite band. What proceeded was an almost spot on cover of Rush’s Tom Sawyer. Reynolds had a bit of trouble hitting the highest of high notes, but it was forgiven because not many people can match Geddy Lee note for note.
Imagine Dragons has a fetish for drums as they were all over the stage. A riser on each end of the stage going into the crowd had a drum set up, while in the middle of the stage where Reynolds microphone stand was there was a two piece drum set present. Next to Reynolds mic stand was large marching band drum where he would knee down and pound away. In front of the drummers kit was a stand up drum kit with at least five or six pieces. At the very back of the stage was a very large tribal drum. All the band members would play all the drums; sometimes all five members would be beating them to create an intense rhythm. Guitarist Wayne Sermon and bassist Ben McKee both shone as being the most talented musicians of the group, performing intricate intros to the band’s songs and absolutely nailing the Rush cover.
The night finished with the band playing Radioactive with some impressive visuals going on. As the band played, giant balloons were thrown into the crowd and when they burst confetti flew everywhere. Reynolds than ran all along the floor of the pit giving everyone high fives. They guys seemed very genuine and ecstatic to be playing for so many people. They promised to come back soon, hopefully with new material as their album has now been out for two years.
