What were the 10 biggest gigs of all time?
You won’t be surprised that it’s the free shows pulling the record-breaking numbers.
In terms of actual ticket sales, Croatian far-right pop rocker Marko Perković managed to shift 504,000 tickets at his Zagreb Hippodrome gig last year, which stands as the all-time record for a commercial show. Yet, even the lowly entries in our list dwarf such figures, the free events collated sparking mammoth crowds into the millions.
In compiling our list, we’ve opted to avoid a repeat of the same locale, so we’ve missed out Jorge Ben, Lady Gaga, Madonna, and The Rolling Stones’ epic shows at Copacabana Beach, as well as The Beach Boys’ set outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
But otherwise, the ten record breakers below faithfully reflect a sometimes surprising litany of places that have hosted gargantuan rock and pop gatherings.
The 10 biggest concerts of all time:
Jean-Michel Jarre – Place de la Concorde (-1million)
The king of gargantuan free shows, it all started for Jean-Michel Jarre back in 1979, celebrating that year’s Bastille Day on July 14th with his signature explosion of light projections and video displays onto buildings. While rookie numbers compared to his later events, his free show at the Place de la Concorde public square was reported to have been performed to just shy of a million.
By all accounts, a meeting with the then Paris mayor Jacques Chirac revealed that seven births had taken place during Jarre’s electronic theatre atop the site of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s guillotine spots.
Black Eyed Peas – Ipanema Beach (1million+)
Riding high on their late 2000s chart domination, R&B pop outfit Black Eyed Peas eyed up Rio de Janeiro’s tradition of massive free beach shows and fancied their chances pulling in the big numbers. Playing New Year’s Eve 2006, the group’s gamble more than paid off; their show was the biggest in Ipanema Beach’s history.
According to City Hall, as many as a million pop fans littered the streets and sands across the ‘posto’ zones eight and nine, eager to catch the Billboard behemoths during their pop pomp, despite the rain.
Various Artists – Plaza de la Revolución (1million+)
The second of the Paz Sin Fronteras series of shows organised by Colombia’s Latin rock star Juanes, his musical efforts to foster South American brotherhood and a message of political non-violence found its way to the symbolic heart of communist Cuba on September 20th, 2009. With Juanes headlining, a litany of Latin and European stars joined the Paz Sin Fronteras II, including Danny Rivera, Juan Fernando Velasco, and Jovanotti.
Gathering at Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, between one and 1.5million music fans attended Juana’s free show, many wearing white as a gesture to the event’s commitment to peace and brotherhood among the Cuban youth.
Jean Michel Jarre – Downtown Houston (1.3million)
Him again. Unleashing another one of his metropolitan spectacles, Jean Michel Jarre decided to let loose his electronic grandiosities amid the skyscrapers of Houston’s central business district. Two birthdays were being celebrated on April 5th, 1985, being the 150th anniversary of the Texan city’s founding, as well as NASA marking its 25th anniversary.
Coinciding with the release of his Rendez-Vous album, the Houston jamboree pulled in an estimated 1.3million people drawn to the fireworks and light displays. So extravagant, legend has it that the 30 large light lamps placed on top of the FBI headquarters drained so much electricity that it interfered with their surveillance of Colonel Gaddafi in the city at the time.
Various Artists – Philadelphia Museum of Art (1.5million)
20 years after hosting the US half of the original Live Aid benefit gigs, organiser Bob Geldof decided to rekindle his charity efforts in light of the then G8 summit and raise money and awareness on global poverty, Philadelphia taking the lion’s share of big names attached to the multiple live events taking place simultaneously as part of the Live 8 shows.
Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi, Linkin Park, and, believe it or not, Kaiser Chiefs were just a few of the many stars that took the stage in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on July 2nd, 2005, a reliable estimate of about 1.5million attendees packed across a mile along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Various Artists – Tushino Airfield (1.6million)
While metal had made its way across the Iron Curtain two years previously, a whole bunch of bands, including Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, and The Scorpions, playing the Moscow Music Peace Festival, the final months of the Soviet Union saw the UK’s Monsters of Rock series take over the old Tushino Airfield, now the site of the Lukoil Arena, for a free jamboree of headbanging heavyweights.
It was quite the coup. With AC/DC headlining and enjoying support from Metallica, Pantera, and The Black Crowes, plus a local metal group EST, Moscow’s Monsters of Rock event on September 28th, 1991, drew in around 1.6million Russian metal fans as the socialist state was opening up to the West in earnest.
Antonello Venditti – Circus Maximus (1.8million)
While not a household name outside Italy, the socially conscious ‘cantautore’ singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti is something of a national treasure back home, having shifted as many as 40million records and standing as a beloved musical figure among the global Italian diaspora.
Long enjoying a relationship with the capital’s AS Roma football club since penning their 1983 ‘Grazie Roma’ theme, Venditti celebrated the team’s third Serie A victory by performing in the city’s ancient Roman chariot-racing stadium, the Circus Maximus, on June 24th, 2001, the free open-air show drawing in 1.8million music and football fans alike.
Jean-Michel Jarre – La Défense (2.5million)
Setting up his arsenal of synths in Paris’ La Défense business district, Jean-Michel Jarre returned to his home country to celebrate Bastille Day on July 14th, 1990, performing in a giant pyramid stage replete with custom marionettes designed by Peter Minshall and a live steel drum band for further celebratory zest.
The Paris La Défense – Une Ville En Concert broke records, with approximately 2.5million people watching the show stretching as far back as the Arc de Triomphe. A lauded show among fans, its lack of an official release has seen the set stand highly prized as an essential Jarre bootleg over the years.
Jean-Michel Jarre – Moscow State University (3million)
A recurring theme in our list, with the French electronic composer counting several spots in the records of massive gig concerts. Just about rivalling Stewart’s premier top spot, Jean-Michel Jarre signed up to celebrate Moscow’s 850th birthday celebrations with a free show at the Moscow State University on September 6th, 1997.
Jarre pulled out all the stops, playing a 20-song set replete with laser spectacle and even a live link communication with cosmonauts aboard the MIR orbital station in space. Shifting half a million official tickets, as many as three million were thought to have been watching the event from the university’s surrounding hilltops.
Rod Stewart – Copacabana Beach (3.5million+)
In Rod we trust. It’s easy to forget just what mammoth audiences the old Faces frontman can command, even to this day, managing to pack out the Pyramid Stage at last year’s Glastonbury Festival Sunday afternoon slot. Yet, if estimates are to be believed, our Rod Stewart boasts the yet undefeated count of the biggest crowd for a gig ever.
Taking to Rio de Janeiro’s famous beach for their famous ‘Réveillon’ New Year’s Eve jamboree, Stewart battled invading fans and a brief heave on an oxygen mask due to the punishing Brazilian heat to perform a free set at Copacabana Beach shortly after midnight’s arrival of 1995. The military police claimed a number of 3.5million, while the Folha de S Paulo press reported a crowd as high as 4m.
