LIVE REVIEWS
For the first time since 2016, Imagine Dragons return to the Reading & Leeds stage, with the aim of delivering one of their most emotional and uplifting performances to date. “I hope tonight is everything you need it to be,” Dan Reynolds tells the audience after an electric rendition of their 2017 hit, ‘Believer’. “We’re here to give you everything we have,” he adds. “We will give you everything. I promise you that.”
He isn’t lying. As the set unfolds, it becomes abundantly clear the lengths that the band have gone to to be a much-needed balm after a heavy weekend. From the epic light displays and endless explosions of confetti, to the unwavering fortitude of their frontman, who gives every ounce of energy he can to belting out the band’s back-to-back anthems. It is a relentless onslaught of positive energy, and this moment feels like it means just as much to them as it does to those who came from far and wide to watch it.
Although at times the interludes and visual displays teeter on the edge of being cheesy – with spoken-word poems about spirituality and elaborate descriptions of our connection to mother nature – ultimately, the set is exactly what you’d expect of a headline act of this gravitas, with back-to-back fan favourites and no end to the members’ showmanship.
It is in the latter half of their headline set, however, that the band truly speak to their fans, and devote a strong segment of their allocated time to stressing the importance of mental health. “If there is anyone who feels lost in their mind… You are not alone in that feeling,” Reynolds calmly tells his crowd, recalling his own experiences of losing friends to depression and calling out the stigma around reaching out for help. “This does not make you broken. It does not make you weak. It makes you wise,” he insists, before launching into ‘Demons’.
This is by no means a groundbreaking set from Imagine Dragons; for the most part, the performance follows the same structure as all the other shows on their ongoing ‘Mercury’ tour. That being said, that seemed to matter not one jot during a show that was designed solely to serve their fans: mission accomplished.
‘My Life’
‘Believer’
‘It’s Time’
‘I’m So Sorry’
‘Thunder’
‘Follow You’
‘Natural’
‘Whatever It Takes’
‘Enemy’
‘Bad Liar’
‘Demons’
‘Bones’
‘Radioactive’
‘Walking The Wire’
Kacey Musgraves has cast a spell across London’s Roundhouse. Dry ice shrouds the Texan artist and her 8-piece band in a hazy mist, the lighting dramatic – at times it evokes the break of dawn, others a thunderous rainstorm. And at the eye of this hurricane is Musgraves, her luminous vocals shining as brightly as the disco ball that’s illuminated during a rousing rendition of ‘Anime Eyes’. With the audience — who obey requests to be in the moment and not just view the gig through a lens — enraptured, the ethereal magic of the live show threads throughout.
Tonight’s gig is part of the ‘Deeper Well World Tour’, the shows accompanying Musgraves’ sixth studio album released earlier this year. It’s a record that saw her “navigating new beginnings”, as she said about its titular track: “Sometimes you reach a crossroads. Winds change direction. What you once felt drawn to doesn’t hold the same allure. You get blown off course but eventually find your footing and forage for new inspiration, new insight and deeper love somewhere else”. Or, as she more succinctly reflects in its chorus: “And I’ve got to take care of myself/I found a deeper well”.
This live setting, with the lush arrangements delivered by Musgraves’ double-denim clad band, is where the songs shine, the resilience and complex emotions they convey shining through. The power of opener ‘Cardinal’ ricochets through the venue accompanied by fleshed out instrumentals, while the lilting ‘The Architect’’s quietly questioning lyrics resonate in their subtle accompaniment.
Tracks that faded into the background on ‘Deeper Well’ at times work better here, too. ‘Jade Green’ is taken from a subdued slow burn into a thundering storm, Musgraves swathed in lights of the titular colour, strobes evoking lightning and crashes of percussion closing out the song, before the chaos subsides into a musical ‘Rainbow’. ‘Lonely Millionaire’, meanwhile, is elevated in this setting, the slinky track coming with mass sing-a-longs.
Yet for all the mysticism and magic when the music is playing, in-between songs Musgraves charms in a very different way. Her breezy wit juxtaposed with gut-wrenching music reminiscent of fellow on-stage entertainers Adele or Lewis Capaldi. As the band gear up for a quieter point in the set and huddle in closer at the front of the stage, Musgraves delights the audience with her tight-5 about the food poisoning and stomach upset she started the tour with, which soon spread around her touring party like wildfire. How did we get onto this story? An audience heckle that sounded a bit like a Spice Girl prompting Musgraves to reveal “I met Sporty the other day and almost shat myself! Speaking of…”
That’s not to say this humour isn’t also evident in Musgraves music — the excellent couplet “If you save yourself for marriage, you’re a bore/You don’t save yourself for marriage, you’re a hor-rible person” is sung with gusto by the crowd, in a stripped back rendition of ‘Follow Your Arrow’ (a cut from Musgraves’ debut studio record ‘Same Trailer Different Park’). And there’s rousing renditions of the jubilant kiss-off ‘High Horse’, and the eye-roll at an insecure ex on ‘Breadwinner’.
As she closes with a cover of Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Three Little Birds’ and a short snippet of ‘Easier Said’, Musgraves tells the audience: “I hope your well has been deepened”. With the spell-binding communal magic of being in the moment and Musgraves’ powerhouse performance, we don’t doubt they have.
Kacey Musgraves played:
‘Cardinal’
‘Moving Out’
‘Deeper Well’
‘Sway’
‘Too Good to Be True’
‘Butterflies’
‘Happy & Sad’
‘Lonely Weekend’
‘Lonely Millionaire’
‘Follow Your Arrow’
‘The Architect’
‘Nothing to Be Scared Of’
‘Heaven Is’
‘Jade Green’
‘Rainbow’
‘Golden Hour’
‘Anime Eyes’
‘Don’t Do Me Good’
‘Justified’
‘Breadwinner’
‘High Horse’
‘Slow Burn’
‘Three Little Birds’ (Bob Marley & The Wailers cover)
‘Easier Said’
