Article content

Imagine Dragons

With: K-Flay, Grouplove

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Pop-rockers Imagine Dragons high on intensity at Edmonton's Rogers Place Back to video

When: Tuesday night

Where: Rogers Place

Dan Reynolds does not believe in time.

The Imagine Dragons frontman believes that it’s a construct, or so he informed the crowd on Tuesday night. Strange, then, that his band is so adept at constructing such a tightly paced set of anthemic pop-rock, high on intensity, clocked right down to the second. That being said, and all questions of personal musical taste and wonky metaphysics put aside, Imagine Dragons made a nearly hour-and-a-half long concert fly by very quickly indeed.

That’s because the Las Vegas-based four-piece really do pull out all the tricks in the book, especially on their Evolve tour, which played to a packed house at Rogers Place. Reynolds is a confident, energetic frontman who knows all of the variations on jazz hands and microphone stand usage. Guitarist Wayne Sermon varies between automaton-like swiveling and greasy guitar god maneuvers, while four-stringer Ben McKee has the bassist bounce down like a champ. Drummer Daniel Platzman stays steady in the midst of rhythmic shifts and false stops.

They’re quite good at that, by the way, goading the audience (heavily populated by young teens) into more and more excited screams with false stops, such as on I’ll Make it Up to You. Imagine Dragons are masters of stage drama, investing tracks like Gold (from 2015’s Smoke + Mirrors) and Rise Up with more potency and weight than they have on record.