This was a “What the hell?” moment.
Yup, never would have guessed that. I’m not even sure I was ever aware he was touring at any part of the year.
He was my second guess. Usher was my first. Why is this so incredible?
Yeah, I don’t see why that would be surprising either. I went to a packed show and it had to be one of the most diverse audiences in age, gender and race I’ve been to.
I guess it’s suprising to me because
1: He’s well off the popular music radar screen and
2: I had no idea his long term popularity would stay at such high levels
Ah. But the reason he was high on my list was because Entertainment Weekly had at least 4 stories on Prince and his tour this year. So he certainly was up there on the pop music radar.
Spin Magazine named Prince the top front man of all time this year. His concerts are the best I’ve ever been to, and that sentiment is expressed by everyone I take to them. He’s got five songs in Rolling Stone’s top 500.
I’ll also ask why you find this incredible.
It seems incredible only if you’re making the connection “Top 40 success=top concert success”. Which it doesn’t. If you went by Top 40 success, the Grateful Dead were pretty much under the radar until “Touch of Grey”. And then they sank beneath the waves again. But damn, if their concerts (over 100 a year) weren’t PACKED. Every damn one.
I know the GD did a lot of things differently from normal bands like not preventing bootleg taping. Did they charge people to get in?
I forgot to add “or was their income fuled off GD merchandise sales”.
They did charge for admission, but they set up their own ticket service to bypass TicketMaster’s fees. I imagine that merchandise sales helped as well, and they DID sell music. They just didn’t prevent the fans from bootlegging (and actually had special seating sections at concerts for people to set up recorders).
The top concert moneymaker is an individual who … writes songs? Who … plays instruments? WHAT IN THE NAME OF BRITNEY IS GOING ON HERE!!!
from…
http://www.prince.org/msg/12/82196/Press_release_on_Musicology_Tour
He also came to Australia near the start of 2004/end of 2003… and the tickets were pretty expensive…
Frankly, I was surprised by Bette Midlers total. Does she play mainly in Vegas?
She does tour. She was at Giant Center in Hershey last year. Her tickets are expensive, though. If I recall correctly (I checked because supervenusfreak is a major fan), it was something like $85/seat.
Jimmy Buffett is usually up near the top of the list, too. All shows sell out, and he plays mid-size to large outdoor arenas. This year he made it to the top of the chart with License to Chill, but prior to that I can’t remember any of his songs
being played regularly on the radio (except the old standards).
All hail Bubba, and happy 58th birthday to him today, as well.