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## CULTURE:Imagine Dragons Sell Out the SAP Center

Last month on February 13, 2014, with a full moon shining through the clouds, Imagine Dragons invaded the SAP Center in San Jose, CA and gave an awe-inspiring 100 minute show to a sold out bay area crowd.

Now in the last part of their touring cycle for Night Visions, the drum heavy four piece from Las Vegas known as Imagine Dragons has been elevated to new heights this year. After selling out countless clubs, theaters and amphitheaters over the last 2 years of their career and winning Best Rock Performance at the Grammy’s, Imagine Dragons has now taken to the sports arenas, and of course is selling those out too.

Joining them on tour as direct support is New Zealand’s own The Naked and Famous and opening for various dates was new comers X Ambassadors. With their minimalist rhythms and romanticized lyrics X Ambassadors was a refreshing start to an amazing night. This Brooklyn based foursome is definitely someone to keep an eye out for.

Looking around while waiting for Imagine Dragons to appear you could see thousands of people holding their phones up with lights facing out. Like stars in the sky, they illuminated the arena and danced around in anticipation of the headliners arrival. Finally the lights went low and smoke bellowed out onto the stage.

After a little wait (we are dealing with rock stars of course), and some ethereal intro music, the band finally broke through the fog. Working the crowd over with songs like ‘Fallen,’ ‘Tip Toe,’ and ‘Here Me,’ Dan Reynolds (frontman) danced around the stage with swagger to spare.

Filled with energy the whole set, Dan Reynolds constantly bounced around from one edge of the stage to the next while keeping the crowd engaged and feeling like they were on stage with him. Changing the pace up slightly at the start of ‘The River’ Reynolds commented ‘This is for all the fans that have been with us for many years…and to the new ones that are just joining us, Hello and Welcome!’ This prompted virtually all the audience (at least the ones that weren’t trying to film) to hold up their phone lights again and add to the ambience of the song.

Having just toured the area last year Imagine Dragons needed to add some extra spice to their set, even if it was only to keep their own sanity. Proclaiming to the crowd before throwing down a RUSH cover of ‘Tom Sawyer,’ Reynolds said ‘If you know this song, and you can hit the high notes with me, I’ll be very impressed, and if you don’t know it, I hope you go home tonight and download it off iTunes. Although I was pleased to see the band educating the youngin’s on one of Rock’s greatest bands, having seen RUSH play that very song, at that very arena not too long ago, nobody does it better than Geddy Lee.

Closing the night with their Grammy award winning performance of ‘Radioactive’ Imagine Dragons gave everything they had left. With confetti filled balloons bouncing and popping all over the crowd, and an all band drumming session at the interlude, ‘Radioactive’ was the perfect end to an already amazing show.