The radiant Imagine Dragons

My expectations fly higher than the banners on top of Main Tent, while I wait for Imagine Dragons to take the stage. I found the band last winter by coincidence when I saw a TV ad with their hit Radioactive, and the song was an instant ear worm. While winter gave way to spring, I fell completely in love with their album “Night Visions” (2012), and now I’d finally see them live!

Main Tent is packed full with people and anticipation. The crowd cheers and chants in high spirits when the band appears. The audience melts completely when singer Dan Reynolds articulates his love of the audience in only slightly broken Finnish.

The energy radiating from the stage is absolutely wild. Especially the performance put on by Reynolds is impressive in its physicality: the singer twirls and jumps, plays the extra drumsets scattered on the stage and takes a trip to the barrier to meet and greet fans. Reynolds grabs a fan and sings Demons forehead to forehead, as in the song’s video. The whole Main Tent is enthralled.

With just one album released, Imagine Dragons went through pretty much every crowd favorite during their hour-long set. Especially their breakthrough hit It’s Time, and On Top of the World along with Demons drive the audience wild, if one cares to denote particular spikes of wild in a set saturated with wild.

Imagine Dragons keeps the crowd in their fingertips throughout their gig, never letting the tempo drop. Instead they build up the tension gradually to the ultimate crescendo, their radio mega hit Radioactive, that has the the whole Main Tent bursting with nuclear energy. From the front row all the way to the bar in the back of the tent, the whole crowd is singing, screaming and jumping.

Afterwards, the feeling is almost incredulous. Is it over so soon? All expectations have been filled, and I still want to just throw my hands up and keep screaming. But despair not, Imagine Dragons promised to return to Finland!

Text: Tiia Heikkinen
Photos: Tuukka Pakarinen
Translation: Jaakko Suvanto