Imagine Dragons

Truthfully I came here to see Metric but stayed due to credibility guilt. Everyone I told seemed upset that I was leaving after Metric, therefore, I stayed for 5 songs just to see what the hype was all about.
I appreciate that they know how to get a crowd going and feel good, however, I was struggling to actually connect with the material.
I did review their new album as part of «New Shit I Listened To» segment of my web zine. I blessed the album with 3 out of 5 stars. I was hoping to get something out of the new material live but it did little to convince me that I was listening to the best album of the year.
I will give them production points. They used a really cool 3D stage configuration but did little of note with it. I knew that after 5 songs that they were just a one trick pony with the stage production. The band themselves, although charismatic, looked lost with the stage layout. Imagine Dragons are another one of those bands whose music works better in a club or small theatre setting. Fortunately they’ve grown in popularity that Rogers Arena was the logical booking. Maybe next time they should do 2 nights at the QE with the same production? Lady Gaga was successfully able to do this a few years back. There was a magic that seemed lost in translation in such a big venue.
I got a better understanding of how they ended up in arenas, though I think the singer could do with more onstage charisma and the drummer could up his game more.
The advantage of our seats was that we were able to spot some technical sound tricks otherwise missed by the general concert goer. Most of the drums were click tracked, the guitar notes were too clean that they sounded pre-​recorded (even The Edge makes mistakes and we all notice) and the lead singer was only singing live 30% of the time (we were that close that we noticed synch issues).
In retrospect it wasn’t a bad show, it just wasn’t the show for me musically.