Imagine Dragons a true crowd-pleaser

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This article was published 19/04/2022 (1286 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lightning and thunder (and a storm of melancholy pop ballads) rained down upon the crowd at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday night.

Las Vegas pop-rock outfit Imagine Dragons performed a mix of new music and chart-topping hits — like the wildly popular and wildly repetitive song Thunder — for a crowd of roughly 6,500 people during a local stop on the band’s multi-continent Mercury Tour.

The North American and European circuit is in support of the group’s fifth studio album, Mercury, which was released in late 2021. The record is something of a departure from Imagine Dragons’ anthem-filled catalogue, delving into the deeper, more emotional waters of addiction, depression and loss.

The two-hour Winnipeg show opened with a black and white video poem featuring a lone figure traversing an apocalyptic wasteland. A fitting visual for a band that often sounds like they’re pumping up an army of followers for an unknown battle.

An orange spotlight revealed lead singer Dan Reynolds in the middle of a long circular platform extending from the main stage. The frontman launched into My Life, a slow burn about substance abuse off the new album, before confetti cannons signalled the start of Believer, a quintessential Imagine Dragons song that takes listeners on an epic journey full of peaks, valleys and platitudes.

The show was similarly full of peaks and valleys. It’s tough to strike a balance between high energy singalongs and sombre melodies, but most in the audience seemed happy to ride the wave of frequent pace changes. The vibe oscillated, quickly and often, between swaying phone flashlights and giddy cheering.

At the half-way point, the band piled into the centre stage for an acoustic interlude. A pared down rendition of I Bet My Life was met with an impassioned clap-along, followed by a cover of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds and, of course, more clapping.

The foursome — made up of Reynolds, guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee and drummer Daniel Platzman — put out its first album in 2009 and quickly found commercial success with a specific brand of crowd-pleasing pop-rock. (Though, they prefer to self-identify as “genreless.”) Still, critical adoration has been harder to come by.

The Mercury Tour is the band’s first major appearance since 2018, when they opted to take a several year break to record new music and step away from a heavy performance schedule that lasted the better part of a decade. The COVID-19 pandemic just so happened to shut down live music globally around the same time.

For his part, Reynolds seemed happy to be back. Wearing a mostly unbuttoned flowy white shirt, he bounded around the stage during upbeat songs and practiced subdued showmanship during slower numbers.

The band’s signature yell-singing and galloping drums were accompanied by the occasional light show and a stylized live video feed streamed onto a large screen. The aforementioned song, Thunder, was bolstered by images of crashing lightning bolts and the opening poem was revisited several times, each rendition gaining progressively happier visuals.

Toronto-born pop singer, AVIV, kicked off the event with a set of airy pop songs capitalizing on big feelings and high school experiences. The 15-year-old artist is best known for Black Coffee, a remorseful single off her debut EP Drowning in the Culture — which she released last week while linking up with the Canadian leg of the Mercury Tour. The up-and-comer was clearly at home on the stage, taking time between songs to chat up the arena and get the crowd riled up by invoking the name of the headliners.

Imagine Dragons fans likely left Tuesday’s show a little hoarse. The band delivered on their promise to give it their all and the audience responded accordingly. It was a night full of recognizable tunes and ample opportunities for live action karaoke.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney