Matt Melis, 61. Maybe that pain fueled the music. On one hand, we love to brag when we experience something -- like a song premiere -- at our tour stop that others cant lay claim to. Each concert was the backdrop for an impromptu (yet wholly expected) speech about motivation and perseverance. Various Artists --Warped Tour(1995), Warped Tour was the swan song of a generation bent on flipping off the status quo. The famed beach in Rio De Janeiro was the scene of one of the biggest rock shows EVER, when the legendary band performed to 1.5 million fans on 18 February 2006. . Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: The Rising Tour, #22. As a blend of pop, soul, rock, and hip-hop, the album showed how versatile Mone was in creating music. 5 business days handling time after receipt of cleared payment. So, in hindsight, its not incredibly shocking that they turned to disco in the mid-70s. Its the circle of life, folks. By 1995, she was touring what would become one of the biggest records of the decade, Jagged Little Pill, with the likes of fellow alt-rock stalwarts Our Lady Peace and future luminaries Radiohead opening. And yes, it was impossible to describe. Shows played: 100, For many an instrumentalist, landing a job withthe E Street Band would be a dream come true. Year(s): 199798. Year(s): 200810. What began in August of 1991 stretched into a worldwide tour until the end of February in 1992. Shows played: 115 Though they were on the road for hundreds of days, the members of Arcade Fire performed like they were bursting with passion, and the crowds felt similarly, as was evident with every audience members soaring jumps to Ready to Start and all those maxed-out sing-alongs to Wake Up. Between the big hits, the delightful absurd prog solos, and the remarkable improvisations that came from these live renditions, it was a tour thats revered for the vibe, the music, and the outstanding record it birthed as a result. Vintage Ted Nugent Scream Dream Wango Tango Tour 1980 t-shirt Condition: Pre-owned Time left: 4d 22h | Starting bid: US $50.00 [ 0 bids ] Bid Amount Enter US $50.00 or more Place bid Best Offer: Make offer Add to Watchlist Ships from United States Shipping: US $5.85 Standard Shipping. In truth, so was his creativity as a songwriter. Shows played: 108 concert series He can be reached at [emailprotected]. To a less confusing time, when both werent out on tour separately. The finished product captures memorable tours that hopefully all music fans can appreciate. With those guidelines listed out, let's take a look at nine of the biggest concerts in American history. After all, Alive was the dance party everybody wanted to see and the tour everyone regrets not going to, even if nabbing tickets was nearly impossible anyway. share our stories with your audience. With each band performing 45-minute sets with no encores, it was a fair and evenly distributed event, showing no bias except for maybe who could play the loudest each night. distribution partner, email us at Shows played: 53 worth applauding. Depeche Mode- World Violation Tour (1990), One of the most popular tours among Depeche Mode fans and electronic fans in general, the World Violation tour saw them kick off 1990 in style. AC/DC didnt so much replace Bon as they went out and found another brother with the same electric current pumping through his veins. Matt Melis, Without The Clash, punk may have struggled to stop taking itself so seriously, especially when it comes to commercial fame. On top of it all, Kendrick Lamar was the opening support, though occasionally other greats like A Tribe Called Quest, Pusha T, and Travis Scott filled in his shoes. The Eagles: Long Road Out of Eden Tour, #24. However, the first few years were rough going. Instead of indulging her indie rock or manic solos of the past, Annie Clark leaned hard into her St. Vincent persona for Masseduction, her fifth studio album. Few tours captured that glimmer of dancing under a disco ball quite like LCD Soundsystem's 2010 tour behind This Is Happening. Perhaps no tour better defined Elton John than his 1974 North American Tour. ), 02. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. David Bowie's Glass Spider Tour: $86 Million Gross adjusted for inflation: $193.9 million Although David Bowie's Glass Spider Tour was poorly received at the time it spanned from May to. It was a perfect combo of alt-rock come-ups with gusto-filled leaders that only seems more dreamy with age. The 26 dates across Europe marked the last tour with bassist John Deacon and singer Freddie Mercury. In that, the Pop Disaster Tour essentially led to Green Days reprise. Buyer pays for return shipping. Suddenly, the stakes for her festival rocketed upwards, despite already starting a frenzy beforehand. & Rakim, Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew, and Public Enemy. It influenced the decades that followed for its sound, its attitude, and its unorthodox touring strategy, suggesting maybe we didnt know what punk rock had to offer, or what it could take away either. Nina Corcoran, 91. Total tour attendance: 2.89 million 30 of the top-grossing music tours of all time, #30. Proving that we often dont know a good thing til its gone, The Polices reunion tour grossed more than any of their heyday tours. Total tour attendance: 2.71 million By embracing 80s camp, the self-love themes of the record, and tour-specific Versace outfits, Gaga used innovative stage installations like a medieval castle and a puppeteered horse to create a world all her own through which to relay her music. The Eagles One of These Nights Tour (1975), Ah, this ones for the dads. I first photographed Bon Jovi live in 1983, when they opened for ZZ TOP at Madison Square Garden. --Matt Melis, Seeing the Goddess of Pop right after her commercial success exploded (yet again) would be one to brag about for the ages. Genesis- The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway Tour (1974-75), Few prog rock tours are as infamous as Genesis' jaunt in support of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, the band's sixth studio album and last with Peter Gabriel as the lead singer. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - The So Far Tour (1974), Getting along doesnt always make for the best music. Not all iconic tours are flawless, as sometimes its their flaws that make them stand out. Shows played: 167 Still, if we can only revisit one U2 tour, it would be 1983s War Tour, before many of their best-known hits came to dominate radio and prior to Bono becoming a slicked-back, leather-clad god who wears sunglasses indoors. List of the top 20 highest-grossing tours (by actual gross, not adjusted for inflation) of all time Rank Actual gross Gross adjusted for inflation (2023 $) Artist Tour name Year(s) Shows Attendance Average gross per show (millions) Average attendance per show Average gross per attendee Ref. Un concert guichets ferms est donn le 5 dcembre 1983 l' Olympia. Conversely, if the same band neglects their back catalog, we can feel cheated on that account. Jon Bon Jovi, David Bryan, Tico Torres, Alec John Such, and Richie Sambora made up the original band, which had hits like "Livin' on a Prayer" and "You Give Love a Bad Name." Live Aid concert raises $127 million for famine relief in Africa Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Magic Tour, #27. by Vivid Seats and Consequence of Sound. Queen had no idea that their world was about to change forever, but they certainly left it all on the stage. Total tour attendance: 4.85 million The English rock bandPink Floyd formed in 1965. Both occurred during Queens Magic Tour. Matt Melis, For half a year, Beyonc didn't just run the world; the world ran around her. From 2007-2008, the band joined Springsteen for a23-songs-per-set tour that was called "euphoric and "profound., Tour gross (adjusted for inflation): $279,110,786 Concert For Bangladesh: Madison Square Gardens, New York City (1971) When sitar maestro Ravi Shankar learned of the fast-escalating. See More by this Creator. The British pop-rock band, fronted by Chris Martin, has had a series of wildly successful albums over the past two decades. Matt Melis, 58. Their manager booked dates that dodged major markets, sending the band through cities like Atlanta, Memphis, San Antonio, Baton Rouge, Dallas, and Tulsa before concluding in San Francisco. Year(s): 200811. And while his fans have had many opportunities to see him play his old hits since then and even perform face-to-face with Elton John dozens of times, footage from the Innocent Man Tour makes us long for, or at least look back fondly on, the days when rock and roll was, well, still rock and roll to Billy Joel. Jorge Ben Jor at Copacabana Beach (1993) - 3 million attendees. Nirvana would go on to play more dates the rest of the year, but it was that initial breakthrough, the turning point of fame encroaching before the mass hysteria ensued, that provided the band with a peak scenario to see them in. Despite winning Album of the Year at the Grammys, Arcade Fire still performed with an exuberant, impassioned, almost amateaur energy that recalled their early years, the type of intense live delivery that suggested the band was leaving it all on the floor just for you, that very night, right before your eyes. It was hard to deny. And for the final touch? However, now that Sabbath has officially closed shop as of 2017 and Ozzy Osbourne insists his latest farewell (No More Tours II) will be his last extended goodbye, we find ourselves staring down the barrel of a potentially Ozzyless concert slate for the first time in decades. Tell me you wouldn't kill to see that live. Talking about a rollercoaster of emotions. But now things are looking up again way up. Year(s): 2017 present. Jawbreaker- 2018 Reunion Tour (2018), For 10 solid years, punk fans and emo kids got to soak up the earnest talent that was Jawbreaker. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Wrecking Ball World Tour, #14. In an era of eclectic festivals and post-nu-metal, it may not seem so groundbreaking, but to bring these genres together 30 years ago absolutely busted down doors and changed how fans thought about different types of music. However, his reign of onstage terror didnt sink to its bloodiest depths until The Billion Dollar Babies Tour a couple years later. Clark used half of the tour as a way to give a solo show, performing older tracks with just her guitar and her voice, and then played newer songs with the help of a backing track. It was the era of young adults claiming their thrones in hip-hop, and seeing that moment in history live was (and still is) a coveted thing. by Alyssa, July 07, 2016 award winning The Jimi Hendrix Experience - First UK Tour (1967), Sometimes a candle burns so brightly that we almost forget how briefly it was lit. The record-breaking concert at Rio de Janeiro was held in the middle of the "A Bigger Bang" tour. Shows played: 197 Known for gimmicks like hanging from a cross, the "Sticky & Sweet tour had none of that. Matt Melis, 48. Shows played: 120 Does it get any better than that? 30 of the Top-grossing Music Tours of All Time | Stacker as well as image rights, data visualizations, forward planning tools, LL Cool J, Whodini, Eric B. Rarely has a festival so large known their audience so well and delivered better. The 1980s brought some of the best music of the 20th century to the world. Thats why the Bon or Brian debate has always seemed pointless. They were merely a group of local musicians who came together for a paid gig (the album recording) and then ended up getting enough paid gigs after that (for both Springsteen and other musicians) that it made sense to become a band. Matt Melis, 41. He had toured extensively with both The Jackson 5 and The Jacksons, playing before royalty, debuting many of his most famous calling cards in concert (including his single glove, sequined jacket, and the moonwalk), and touring the songs off hit solo albums Off the Wall and Thriller with his siblings. Brooks was the first 10-gallon megastar to prove that you could be a little bit country by day and a lot of rock and roll each night onstage. We want to hear it. Ever since his days as a Beatle, Paul McCartney has been wildly popular. Total tour attendance: 6.34 million That terrible thought is enough to make us want to turn the page back to the Diary of a Madman Tour. Nina Corcoran, 46. OutKast at Emory University (September 1999) (Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc) The late '90s/early 2000s was a great time to be a college student. The groups 2011 tour was their first proper tour instead of a smattering of dates. In 2010, it finally glowed bright enough for everyone to notice. Again, a lot of time to spend onstage with someone you cant stand. Here is everything you need to know, The biggest music festivals in 2022: dates, cities, ticket information, lineups announced, What is MegaSeats? Live videos from the tour capture what it felt like to be there, from people's shrieking screams for the band at the start of songs to the mischievous air that hung during their stripped-down, acoustic renditions. While this is not a comprehensive list of all concert tours, its the most accurate representation as of January 2019. It did include an impressive array of the pop divas most famous hits from her 30-year career, as well as some iconic dance moves, but it was perhapsthe pop stars most family-friendly tour ever. Matt Melis, 54. Theyre a combo that thrives on the workmanlike sweat that comes from putting on an unforgettable rock and roll concert night in and night out. Bookmark Quiz Bookmark Quiz Bookmark. Total tour attendance: 5.39 million Matt Melis, Rock doesn't get better than The Who, and what better way to challenge the notion of ruff and tough classic rock than an opera? They had something to prove, and their 1968 North American tour saw them go from supporting bands like Vanilla Fudge, Country Joe & the Fish, and Iron Butterfly to headlining the very same tour, culminating in concerts like one in Boston where the band transformed one albums worth of material and a handful of popular covers into more than four hours that left everyone spellbound. Tour gross (adjusted for inflation): $364,300,000 Against Me! The Biggest Benefit Concerts In History | uDiscover Nina Corcoran, 37. Those shows broke box-office records across the US previously held by The Rolling Stones as magician and skeptic James Randi introduced a series of gruesome stage effects, freakiest of all a guillotine beheading that put the roll in rock and roll. Cher: Living Proof: The Farewell Tour, #20. ZZ Top Concert Map by year: 1979 | setlist.fm -- Matt Melis, 55. Though he's been touring ever since he was a preteen, Wonder's live shows have only gotten better with age, which explains why his recent Songs in the Key of Life Tour was so remarkable. Celine Dion: Taking Chances World Tour, #17. 9 Backstreet Boys - 73,337 The Backstreet Boys were at the height of their popularity when they drew over 73,000 fans into the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on February 19, 2000. Total tour attendance: 2.20 million Stacker believes in making the worlds data more accessible through Each stop on his 1993-94 world tour featured the likable cowboy rising up amid pyrotechnics, leaping from platforms around the stage, and even soaring across the venue high above his audience. His tour "The Wall Live has been called "one of the most ambitious and complex rock shows ever staged. It also markedthe first time that "The Wall had been played in its entirety since a one-off performance beside the (fallen) Berlin Wall in 1990. It was the first time wireless mics would ever be used onstage. Shows played: 155 My, my. Paul Simon The Graceland Tour (1987), Its difficult to believe, but Paul Simons career was running on fumes by the mid-80s. Do they have fees? arts center 1980s ZZ Top Eliminator Red Satin Roadie Tour Concert Jacket USA small Condition: -- "Pre-owned" Price: US $99.00 No Interest if paid in full in 6 mo on $99+* Buy It Now Add to cart Best Offer: Make offer Add to Watchlist Ships from United States Shipping: US $10.55Expedited Shipping. Following Autobahns chart success overseas in 1974, the group visited the States, Canada, and the UK for the first time the following year. Though she's already blessed with one of the all-time greatest voices of any artist, Beyonc's choreography, stamina, and ability to never lose her breath was astounding. Year(s): 200203. In other instances, a concerttour transcends live events and is a culturalmoment. It was the tour where a swatch of die-hard fans who would follow them on tour intentionally decided to fall off, certain Radiohead could never top a tour like this again. But when scouring through live bootlegs from back then, the 1997 fall tour stands out because of how energized the jam band sounds -- and when it comes to Phish shows, its the energy in the air that can turn an already memorable performance into one that feels like magic. Midway through the tour, the Stones took a month-long break. Led Zeppelin- North American Tour 1968/1969 (1968-69), Its telling that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page cant leave their homes without being asked about the chances of a Led Zeppelin reunion. Another wildly popular Bruce Springsteen tour, "The Rising Tour began a week after the release of Springsteens 12th studio album, "The Rising." (Malik left in the spring of 2015. Paramorew/Tegan and Sara - Honda Civic Tour (2010), Though it's very much a sponsored event (and in no way tries to hide it), the annual Honda Civic Tour is a blessing for pop, rock, and punk fans, especially kids who rarely get to see big acts in suburban areas because of age restrictions. Year(s): 200203. If your organization is interested in becoming a Stacker Even more impressive than the bevy of talent was the fact that the tour raised more than 10 million dollars for charities in its successful short run. Ask Stephen Stills and Neil Young, who have spent much of their Hall of Fame careers either playing in bands with each other or quitting them. i was lucky enough to see the crue 3 times in the 80s.the theater of pain ,girls girls girls and dr feelgood tours . It was the tour that saw them flood Madison Square Garden, the tour that represented a new financial model for rock acts, and the tour that produced one of the first live bootleg recordings (the second concert in Oakland, for those who don't know). tour dates Nina Corcoran, 20. She reworked older material to fit the aesthetics of the show as well, using a Tesla coil in "Declare Independence" or a pipe organ to play "Joga.". Stayin alive, stayin alive. 1979/80 Highway To Hell 1980/81 Back In Black 1981/82 For Those About To Rock 1983/84 Flick Of The Switch 1985/86 Fly On the Wall 1986 Who Made Who 1988 Blow Up Your Video 1990/91 The Razors Edge 1996 Ballbreaker 2000/01 Stiff Upper Lip 2003 Stones & Club Dates 2008/10 Black Ice 2015/16 Rock Or Bust Some of the best moments can be found on his acclaimed Otis Redding: Live in Europe album, and it would be only three months later at Monterey Pop that Redding would largely wash away the color line at a music festival in his own country. Osbourne wasnt in the healthiest state at the time, but who could resist being the proverbial flying rodent on the wall as Ozzy legendarily bit a dead bat thrown onstage (and had to subsequently get rabies shots) or went outlaw by donning his wifes nightgown, getting smashed, and pissing on The Alamo? Nina Corcoran, 79. The short winter tour in intimate venues across the US ended with two nights at Bowery Ballroom mere hours before Christmas. January 23, 2019 The night a ZZ Top concert trashed the Texas Longhorns' stadium - ESPN.com While it may have been unusual for its time, everyone from Depeche Mode to Bjrk have cited the band as a major influence. What was the best concert you attended during the 1980s? Still, few tours capture the spirit of 90s alternative rock like those early Lollapaloozas, especially the tours 1992 installment. The trick became how to showcase all that talent, not to mention a style of music still very much in its infancy, and present it to the world. As the album and its handful of singles climbed the charts and took the world by storm, the real storm was brewing backstage as romantic partnerships in the group fell apart. All rights reserved (About Us). 107 of the biggest stars from the '80s are on tour in 2023 including Madonna, Guns N' Roses, Bruce Springsteen, Duran Duran, The B-52s, Metallica, Reba McEntire, Ice Cube, Billy Idol and Kenny . Nina Corcoran, Theres no science to picking out the best tours, especially when some of the artists on this list have more great tours than you can count on a single hand.