Most influential tours of all time

I saw the "Low" show in NYC back in 2002, but I don't think Bowie really "toured behind" it. His US shows outside of the Roseland concert didn't offer "full 'Low'"...

 

Wings Over America!

Really the entire 75/76 tour, it was the first time lasers were used like that, I remember how everyone's mind was blown in the Seattle Kingdome!

 

Grateful Dead were doing that long before Bob (they probably inspired him) but it's still a relatively-rare phenomenon.

 

I think that's just going back to an older way of touring. The album -> tour cycle is more of a relatively recent thing.

 

Yes, that's why I qualified my post by saying "limited dates" (or even "one-night only" type affairs), which may or may not constitute "tours" in the traditional sense, but basically I was agreeing with 0476pearljam that performing single "classic" albums has become an influential trend, even if Bowie didn't officially begin it. I mostly just seem to recall these Low shows being heavily touted as such at the time, but unfortunately I didn't get to see them.

Another tour that comes to mind as being highly influential, albeit for all the wrong reasons, was the Eagles' '94 "Hell Freezes Over" tour, which may not have been the first where $100 and up ticket prices became the norm, but I associate it with those obscene figures. Of course, Barbra Streisand pretty much takes the cake for charging $1 million per ticket at one of her shows (can't remember which), but maybe she doesn't count....

 

He did so few of them! I think the Roseland show was the only "Low" concert in the US.

I was happy to see it as a unique experience but I don't think it went over tremendously well - and that was an audience solely made up of Bowienet members!

If we want to pin down the tour that shot up ticket prices, I'd say it was the Jacksons in 1984. Tickets for "A"-list acts topped out around $18-$20 back then, but they wanted $30 per ticket! That was scandalous back then.

The Eagles were the first band to hit the $100 mark for a "regular tour" - ie, not a benefit or a special show - and given the Stones charged $50/ticket the same year, that was a pretty big leap.

I've never found out what percentage of 1994 Eagles tickets were $100, though. Not sure if that was a very limited number of "prime" seats or if it accounted for a ton of seats.

Since they played a lot of stadiums, they must've had tickets way below $100 as well. Even in 2018, it can be tough to sell the worst stadium seats for $100, much less back in 1994!

Streisand broke the bank with her limited tour in 1994 as well - she got as much as $350 per ticket!

I view Streisand as different than Eagles/Jacksons/Stones, though, due to the style of music. Maybe I shouldn't separate her from the pop/rock acts, but I do!

 

Are you sure about that ? I go to concerts since 35 years and for a thousand concerts that were done promoting an album that was just out, I only saw perhaps 5 or ten concerts that were not.

 

Aussie Floyd and Brit Floyd would disagree.

 

Anarchy in the Uk Tour 76' - Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and Johnny Thunders. They changed the musical landscape through never seen before live shows.

 

If you're talking about influence, the Eagles tour in 1994 where they asked for $100 for top price was hugely influential. They showed that the Boomer audience was willing to pay. We've been feeling that influence in our wallets ever since.

 

I was going to put forward "The White Riot Tour"!

 

Allowing for inflation that's the equivalent of $90 now! I've not checked, but I bet the US prices for Jacko's Bad Tour were similarly high.

 

also a revelation to many of them that there even was an audience for them in the UK - Duck for one was reluctant to give up a once a week club gig to go!

 

65 was the first real Stadium tour.

 

Inflation calculators don't really work for concert tickets - the business has simply changed way too much. Those $30 tickets in 1984 would be more like $500 tickets now.

The "Bad" tour was a little cheaper - here in DC, tickets were $25. I think MJ was embarrassed by the appearance of greed in 1984 and wasn't going to equal/surpass those prices on his first solo tour...

 

I had forgotten about that. But wasn't that more of a one-off and kind of a fiasco? I don't remember prices going up across the board as a result, as happened ten years later with the Eagles.

The Who, Tommy, 1969. Didn't the Kinks do that with all of their "theatrical" albums, too? If anything, Lamb was closer to the end of that trend than the beginning. When the "whole album tour" became popular again (late 90s?), it was decades later and usually a nostalgia trip (although I'm sure there were always some bands doing it in any given year from 1969-present).

 

Deep Purple {Live 1973} (Loud...the sound pressure intense. Set a new standard.)

Peter Gabriel Secret World Tour (Great percussion crazy props)

 

Except that they'd already reintroduced the acoustic set for the 1975 Earls Court shows, and presumably enjoyed it so much that they decided to carry it over for the '77 tour. That said, Plant's sore leg was a factor in how they designed the 1977 setlist, though.

Actually the only overdubs on Wings Over America were touch ups on a couple of Denny Laine vocals and one Jimmy McCulloch guitar part. We hashed all that out in a discussion here years ago...

Indeed- going out and playing an entire double album of new material -a very convoluted Rock Opera, no less- before it even hit the shelves was a ballsy move. As Steve Hackett put it, "There were very few concessions to the past on the Lamb tour."

Nope, The Who and Zeppelin were already using lasers in 1975, before Wings Over America.

 

Buddy Holly & the Crickets - UK March, 1958

 

But tickets didn't suddenly shoot up after the Eagles' tour. Take the Stones: when they toured stadiums in 1997, they still had prices around $60.

If they Stones - long a bellwether of "top-end rock concert ticket prices" - didn't jack up prices to $100+ 3 years later, that says to me it took a while for acts other than the Eagles to broach the 3-digit barrier.

Of course, the Stones had charged more than $100 on occasion - I paid a whopping $250 for a close-up ticket to the final Steel Wheels show in 1989 - but those were unusual circumstances and not "standard shows".

Anyway, I think the Jacksons' tour showed people were willing to pay "super-high" prices. Took a few years for someone else to ask $30/ticket, but I think it also took a while for anyone else to hit $100 after 1994, too...

 

BTW, I'm still curious to know what percentage of Eagles' stadium shows in 1994 were $100. I know not all the tickets were that much - not sure how many were, though!

 

I recall a figure around $70 being tossed around as a typical ticket price for that tour.

 

Prince Purple Rain tour has to be included.

 

The 2nd one. First tour in stadiums. After them every summer there was packaged tours of 2 headliners and another couple of smaller bands in the Super Bowl of Rock. Like Yes and Peter Frampton or ELP and JGeils.

Another turning point, not for the best was how high the prices were for the Jacksons tour in mid 80s after the success
Thriller. Had to be higher than 81 Stones. This just escalated all ticket prices.