when the day rolled round, i'd taken the day off work so i could go hang around the venue and see what the deal was. i got to waterloo at about 11:15, but couldn't figure out where the hell the venue was. google maps seemed to be adamant that i was in the right place but i couldn't see it ANYWHERE. i was in what seemed to be some kind of legal graffiti area (turns out it was exactly that: london's leake street) but with no apparent venue. i found my way to the top, and saw a poster on a door saying 'house of vans' so figured that would be as good a place as any to set up camp, as it were. it was about 12 in the afternoon by this point and i was still the only one there as far as i could see. a few minutes later, aurelie of imagine dragons france came and sat with me and it turns out she and her friend had been sat in the car after driving up from paris that morning. a member of security came out and told us we couldn't sit there, and also that if we didn't have tickets for the show then we wouldn't be able to get in. that didn't deter me though! we moved to another door slightly further up the road and sat there for another few minutes before a much nicer member of staff came out to tell us we needed to wait in the tunnel i'd found previously, as the entrance was down there. he also advised me to stick around as there's a chance they'd be able to let us in due to the fact there'd be no-shows and people under 18 who wouldn't be able to get in.
aurelie headed back to her car, so i went down to have a nosey at the area. i saw them loading in some equipment, so guessed that was the entrance to the venue. i couldn't stick around there though as i got no mobile signal in that specific part of the tunnel so i sat at the entrance to it and kept an eye on the door and the vehicles coming in and out. eventually a few other fans showed up so i went to speak to them, and they turned out to be really nice! and they implemented the number system, which was a bit of a novelty for me as its usually us doing that. it was getting really close to the gig and there was still barely anyone around which was so surreal, and of course we still didn't have tickets. one of the guys who was putting some posters up inside came to have a bit of a chat and i just told him that i didn't have tickets and i'd been here since 12, and that marnie was coming down from glasgow and would be getting here at about 6:30. he saved the day though and said he'll be on the door and will let us in, no questions asked! what a babe, thank you (its a shame i can't remember his name, caleb or something...) martha and her friend rowan came along and joined us shortly after too.
my housemates kathryn and hayley came along after work as they'd agreed to come meet us to take marnie's stuff back to our place so she wouldn't have to deal with it during the gig, then eventually marnie showed up at 6:30. we joined our place in the queue, which still wasn't even that big, and kept an eye out for the guy who said he'd get us in. there was the general queue stress - what time are we going in, how come there's another queue over there etc etc but it all went pretty smoothly.
once we were in, we secured our usual spot despite it being the weirdest, smallest venue ever. it's an indoor skate park, so there's ramps and stuff littered across the floor and the barrier was maybe 20 people wide? but we made it and it was glorious.
we had about an hour's wait until the dragons hit the stage, and when they did it it was just magical. opening with it's time, i'm surprised i didn't burst into tears. somehow i kept it together. they played a much bigger mix of songs than i thought - lots of new ones with a good selection of oldies too. rocks, the river, demons, radioactive, on top of the world. new songs included shots, gold, i bet my life, i'm so sorry (ACTUAL JAM), summer... they all sounded absolutely incredible live. we almost broke our necks to i'm so sorry, and i don't think i've ever jumped as hard as i did during i bet my life. the only thing missing was ryan - at the time they were on stage we obviously didn't know that he'd decided to move on as he posted his announcement after the show - and it made the experience a little different to normal as we didn't have the little interactions we'd seemed to develop. it didn't hinder the boys though, they still put on an absolutely insane performance and we can't wait to see it in a proper, big arena!
the show was being livestreamed too, which was embarrassing. the cameramen were laughing at us all night over how enthusiastic we were, and you can watch it here if you're interested.
there was also an art exhibition in the venue, featuring the incredibly talented tim cantor's work for the album. all the pieces are so insanely detailed and it was lovely to be able to see them so close up and read about each piece.
despite finding out the sad news about ryan that night, we still had an absolutely wonderful evening and we are so lucky to be able to say we were there! here's to the tour.
love,
the wolfpack
xo
