While there’s nothing wrong with supporting your favorite metal band down at the local club, there’s truly nothing like going to a massive rock show for the best way to witness live music.
Stadium rock shows are now a fixture on the calendar. Whether you’re planning on watching Korn and Faith No More’s co-headliner or are waiting for that Led Zeppelin reunion, then the chances are that you’ll be attending some massive venues.
But some rock shows are clearly bigger than most. So we’re going to give you a quick rundown of some of the biggest rock and metal shows in history. In fact, some of these shows are so huge that they couldn’t even be contained in the largest stadiums and amphitheaters.
Some of these massive concerts were even held in sports stadiums such as the Maracana Stadium in Brazil. Sports clubs and their stadiums represent a great passion to millions of fans around the world. There’s a great deal of hype in watching sports. But betting is also getting widely popular in Australia and everywhere else – as a quick glance at the brand new betting sites listed will show. Some of the following artists making iconic appearances, it’s easy to see why they had to be booked in at these traditional sporting arenas.
Monsters of Rock in Moscow 1991 – 1,600,000 people
The Monsters of Rock festival was well-known for being a pivotal launch-pad for many of the most legendary metal bands. The likes of Guns N’ Roses first got their taste of true fame by playing this festival in Castle Donnington in the UK. But such was the success of Monsters of Rock that it was only a matter of time before it branched out into other locations around the world.
So when Monsters of Rock came to Russia after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was always going to be a spectacular event. While Russia might not be known for giving us too many notable metal bands, over 1.6 million eager rock fans packed into the Tushino Airfield near Moscow to see legends like Metallica, AC/DC, Pantera and the Black Crowes. Plus there was a bonus appearance from the Russian heavy metal band E.S.T.
US Festival in California, 1983 – 700,000 people
Not only was this one of the biggest rock festivals ever, but the US Festival was organized by Steve Wozniak – one of the co-founders of Apple. This epic festival took place in 1983 during a time where heavy metal was undergoing some momentous changes.
As such it featured some of the rising stars of the LA glam rock scene like Motley Crue, alongside some of the established order such as Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Scorpions and Van Halen. While the US Festival has been largely forgotten in comparison to the likes of Woodstock, it still remains a defining part in the growth of metal – especially for the 700,000 rock fans who attended this massive event.
Paul McCartney in Rio de Janeiro, 1990 – 184,000 people
This concert by the Beatles icon was one of the largest ticketed shows ever put on by a solo performer. This saw Paul McCartney playing to 184,000 fans inside the famous Maracana Stadium that normally hosts massive footballing events like the World Cup.
What made this show all the more exciting was the fact that it was part of his Paul McCartney World Tour that followed on from a decade of inactivity.
It might disappoint rock fans that McCartney didn’t include Helter Skelter in the setlist, as this track is arguably one of the first-ever heavy metal songs. But with performances of other classic rock anthems like Back in the USSR, I Saw Her Standing There, and Get Back, there would have been many happy Beatles fans in Brazil that night.
