Wings over America: Imagine Dragons jam on jammed Southwest flight; album debuts at No. 1

By John Katsilometes

Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015 | 11:37 a.m.

ATLANTA — Wearing a grin and plain white T-shirt you’d buy three-to-a-pack at Target, Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds returned to the stage — which is to say he returned to his spot at the head of the cabin just in front of the cockpit.

Reynolds nodded at the warm reception, as this small but ebullient Destination Dragons crowd wanted more.

“I’ve always thought encores were extremely awkward. The band walks offstage, and then they have to come back onstage because everyone’s clapping,” Reynolds said. “But it’s even more uncomfortable when you have to go to your seat on an airplane and have to come back up and do it again.”

He added, “We really weren’t planning on doing (an encore), I promise. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have sat down.”

It might have been awkward, and it was an event when Imagine Dragons recalled the gigs they played before they were famous, long sets before sparse crowds at such haunts as Beauty Bar, the Pub at Monte Carlo and the tiny stage at O’Sheas.

But this was very different.

“That was a bizarre performance environment for us, and for us to say that is no small statement,” bassist Ben McKee said about an hour after the band landed here in Atlanta after its in-flight performance on Southwest Airlines. “We’ve performed with mimes, we’ve performed with cheerleaders dancing onstage with us, we’ve performed in malls and in tiki lounges. But we have never done anything like this.”

The Southwest promotional performance was an offshoot of its pop-up “Live at 35” series, during which artists are issued seats on a random flight, then as the plane reaches 35,000 feet perform.

But this was an announced appearance, as the Destination Dragons promotion was a mini-tour, taking the band to Provo, Utah (where Reynolds attended college, at BYU, and where the earliest version of the band began performing), L.A. and a roaring show at Vinyl in the Hard Rock Hotel on Monday night.

The series of club shows ends tonight in Atlanta. Performed at each stop is the band’s latest album, “Smoke + Mirrors,” which was released last week and debuts atop the Billboard 200 albums chart this week.

“This was a way to really connect with our fans on a one-on-one basis, and we’ve always been about fan interaction,” McKee said. “It’s a way to get back that feeling and re-create those moments.”

Though some moments are best to leave in the “Do Not Re-Create” file.

“I remember playing a show at Beauty Bar and leaving during the break to find people to come in and watch us play,” McKee said. “I walked in to the gyro place up the street and hustled some people to come in so we’d have an audience.”

Those days are long gone, as major corporations are now hustling the band for promotional partnerships. The Southwest campaign comes a few weeks after Target staged the band on a live commercial from Fremont East during the Grammy Awards telecast, and Target is the exclusive retail outlet selling the CD version of “Smoke + Mirrors.”

For the Destination Dragons promotion, 40 fans aboard the flight had won sweepstakes prizes through Southwest, offering a chance to take part in the entire tour and the flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta. In a piece of shrewd marketing, Southwest also is allowing passengers to play the entire “Smoke + Mirrors” album on its website on flights that offer Wi-Fi.

As for how the show played out, well, there was no smoke, no mirrors, no gigantic bass drum and no strobes. This was as stripped down a set as can be, and as Reynolds grabbed the cabin microphone, he asked, “Can you guys hear me? In the middle?” as if about to give directions on what to do in the event of an emergency.

He apologized to those who were not contest winners for being “stuck on a plane with us.” McKee cut in, telling passengers to show their dissatisfaction by pressing the flight-attendant call buttons overhead (a few passengers actually did, drawing laughter through the cabin).

The performance covered three songs, including the encore of “On Top of the World.” The band opened with its first radio hit, “It’s Time,” and covered “Radioactive,” as Daniel Platzman, the band’s percussionist and multi-instrumentalist, was hidden from view behind the wall at the plane’s entrance.

At the end of the show, and as the plane continued its path to Atlanta, guitarist Wayne Sermon was asked about those venues from the band’s infancy.

“Well, if you’re going by the smallest stage, this one wins, but not by much,” he said. “O’Sheas, maybe, was 40 percent bigger.”

But, as he said, the high-flying show was “really cool.”

“You’ve got to hand it to the crew for pulling this off. It worked, we have a PA system that worked, and someone held the announcement phone over the speaker to give us a boost,” he said. “We improvised, as we often do. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, totally.”

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