HOLLYWOOD - The Irish rock band U2 was the concert to see in 2001.The veteran band, lead by charismatic singer Bono, grossed $109.7 million in ticket sales from 80 shows on their North American Elevation tour, second only to The Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge tour, which took in about $121 million in 1994.
The other huge sellout concert was Madonna's elaborate Drowned tour, which raked in $54.7 million from just 28 shows.
Though the big concert numbers--$1.75 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2000--can be directly attributed to the higher ticket prices, the record-setting year surprised those in the know since there was a decline in concert revenues in the first half of 2001.
"It shocked the hell out of me," Gary Bongiovanni, editor at the Fresno, Calif.-based Pollstar magazine told Reuters.
"The ticket price increase is the explanation for why we hit record revenues, but it was something that we certainly didn't expect to see when we started our analysis."
Others in the top 10 concert list include boy bands 'N Sync ($86.8 million) and Backstreet Boys ($82.1 million), Aerosmith ($49.3 million) and Janet Jackson ($42.1 million).