Ongoing History Daily: The largest concert of all time?

August 14, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

There’s been some debate on which artist played the largest concert of all time. We’re not talking about a festival. I mean a headliner act playing before the biggest crowd.

The Rolling Stones may have played in front of up to 500,000 people in London’s Hyde Park in July 1969. I
n 2006, The Stones played a show on Copacabana Beach in Rio in front of 1.5 million people.
Then there’s French electronic music pioneer, Jean-Michel Jarre. In 1997, he performed in Moscow for the city’s 850^th anniversary with a crowd also estimated at 3.5 million.
But then there’s Rod Stewart who performed a free show on Copacabana Beach on New Year’s Eve 1994 in front of 3.5 billion people. However, if some media outlets can be believed, the actual number of attendees was 4.2 million.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

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