Plenty of bands start when like-minded musicians meet at school or university, looking to blow off some steam and make something happen. Very few of them find themselves playing to a crowd of 26,000 people within a year of getting together. And yet this is what happened to Imagine Dragons at the Bite of Las Vegas Festival in 2009, having volunteered to fill in for Train when their singer Patrick Monahan became unwell (there’s a How To Drag Your Train On pun here, somewhere). By all accounts they won over a skeptical crowd, and that’s the sort of experience that can really pull a band together.
And it’s this kind of headspinning sudden success that the band have had to get used to, especially since 2012, when their colossal hit single Radioactive first appeared on the Radio 1 playlist, swiftly followed by the equally huge Demons. Seven million fans worldwide bought their debut album Night Visions. The follow-up Smoke + Mirrors was released in February this year, and was heralded by an inspired Live Lounge mash-up of Taylor Swift’s Blank Space with Ben E. King’s Stand By Me.
One thing is for sure, whatever life has to throw at them, Imagine Dragons have learned to be ready for it.
Plenty of bands start when like-minded musicians meet at school or university, looking to blow off some steam and make something happen. Very few of them find themselves playing to a crowd of 26,000 people within a year of getting together. And yet this is what happened to Imagine Dragons at the Bite of Las Vegas Festival in 2009, having volunteered to fill in for Train when their singer Patrick Monahan became unwell (there’s a How To Drag Your Train On pun here, somewhere). By all accounts they won over a skeptical crowd, and that’s the sort of experience that can really pull a band together.
And it’s this kind of headspinning sudden success that the band have had to get used to, especially since 2012, when their colossal hit single Radioactive first appeared on the Radio 1 playlist, swiftly followed by the equally huge Demons. Seven million fans worldwide bought their debut album Night Visions. The follow-up Smoke + Mirrors was released in February this year, and was heralded by an inspired Live Lounge mash-up of Taylor Swift’s Blank Space with Ben E. King’s Stand By Me.
One thing is for sure, whatever life has to throw at them, Imagine Dragons have learned to be ready for it.
