WE’RE already planning our Glastonbury wardrobes and have nose pegs for those disgusting long drops at the ready.
But it’s not just us who’re feeling excited about festival season and Worthy Farm, as Imagine Dragons guitarist Wayne Sermon has admitted their 2014 set at the festival was one of the best experiences of their career.
Imagine Dragons’ Hollywood Bowl gig will screen in UK cinemas next week[/caption]
The band is coming to the UK this summer[/caption]
“Glastonbury was absolutely insane,” he explains in an exclusive chat.
“I don’t think people in the U.S. understand what a festival means.
“You guys do festivals so much bigger and so much more epic than anywhere in the States.
“It just feels very raw and authentic, whereas like not to name any specific U.S. festivals, but they feel more like a social event.
“During our Glastonbury set it was raining like mad, like the muddiest situation. Everyone just gets their wellies on and goes for it. We decided just to get dirty with everyone else and played our set that way.
“Some of the best memories as a band are playing festivals in the UK.”
The Radioactive stars are now coming to the big screen next week, with their concert film, Imagine Dragons: Live From The Hollywood Bowl showing in cinemas next Wednesday and Saturday.
Speaking about the concert, which saw the band performing alongside a 50-strong orchestra, Wayne jokes: “In rare form, we actually were very prepared for that show.”
The boys worked closely with esteemed composer Inon Zur, who did the music on some of their favourite videogames including Prince of Persia and Fallout.
They began by trialling three or four songs which quickly turned into a full set of classically infused brilliance as Inon worked his magic on the Dragons’ hit-packed back catalogue.
This summer they will bring their tour to Europe and the UK where they’re playing two nights at Tottenham Hotspur‘s stadium in London.
While there won’t be an orchestra, the meat and potatoes of the set won’t change too much.
Wayne says: “There’s always just like this huge momentum of energy when we play over there. And so it’s one of our favorite places to be.
“I mean, we’re going to definitely change some things up just to keep it exciting for ourselves. We don’t really know what that’s going to be yet, but we have the show pretty locked in. We’re really happy with it generally.
“Europeans and the UK, they haven’t seen the show yet. So we’re not going to like completely transform or anything. But yeah, just in order to keep things exciting for us, we’re going to change some songs around and and, you know, just play with a little bit and make sure that it’s exciting to us to play, you know, night after night as well.”
Much has been made of the rise in touring costs and ticket prices following the covid pandemic.
The challenges of putting together a huge world tour haven’t been lost on Wayne who calls the current climate “brutal”.
“It’s getting a little crazy,” he says. “The fuel costs have gone up, so that means that when you do a show like like we’re doing, we have to rent six or seven big tour buses to bring all our crew across the different countries.
Frontman Dan Reynolds is a force of nature, according to guitarist Wayne Sermon[/caption]
The band played four sold out nights at the legendary LA venue in October[/caption]
“Things are looking really less and less fruitful in some ways, but at the end of the day, we feel like we owe it to the people there to still come.”
Hailing from Vegas, the band know how to put on a show with confetti, anthemic tunes and pyro.
And frontman Dan Reynolds has heartthrob status thanks to his ripped physique which he often shows off when performing bare-chested.
Wayne is more than happy to let his friend have the spotlight and insists he has an incredible command of the stage whether he’s wearing a top or not.
“He’s always been such a power,” says Wayne. “Like, honestly, whether he has a shirt on or not, he’s always been this way.
“He’s been this guy since the very beginning. I assure you, his stage presence, he’s always been that guy that commands attention.
“First time I ever saw him was on a stage. We weren’t in a band together. I didn’t even know him. I hadn’t been introduced to him yet.
“But I was in he was just in college and I had gone to see him and was like, who’s this guy? You know, he he had that sort of thing that you can’t teach. He had that thing you can’t really buy.”
Not only is Dan the perfect showman but he’s got an eye for finding talent too.
The singer signed up American Idol star Benson Boone after being impressed by him on the US show.
Benson has since taken the world by storm and his performance of single Beautiful Things was a major talking point from this year’s Grammy Awards.
Wayne says: “I think what Benson Boone’s been able to do has been so cool.
Dan and I met him and we were both pretty confident that he was going to be a pretty big thing. Dan ended up signing him to his sister label at Interscope, which has been really amazing.
“So I’m just super proud of him to see how he how high he’s risen and super, super awesome young guy.”
Imagine Dragons: Live From The Hollywood Bowl will be screening across the UK on 26 and 29 March. Tickets are on sale now at imaginedragonsmovie.com.
