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Since forming in 1962, the English rock band 
The Stones first American tour happened in 1964-June.
In their early years of performing, the band would undertake numerous short tours of the United Kingdom and North America, playing in small- and medium-size venues to audiences composed largely of screaming girls. As time moved on, their audience base expanded (in terms of both size and diversity) and they would increasingly favour larger
"The Rolling Stones: Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out"
. ''Rolling Stone''. 12 November 1970 (accessed 28 April 2007) The biggest concert the band gave was in
Since forming in 1962, the English rock band The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...
have performed more than two thousand concerts around the world, becoming one of the world's most popular live music attractions in the process.
The Stones first American tour happened in 1964-June.
In their early years of performing, the band would undertake numerous short tours of the United Kingdom and North America, playing in small- and medium-size venues to audiences composed largely of screaming girls. As time moved on, their audience base expanded (in terms of both size and diversity) and they would increasingly favour larger arena
An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...
s and stadiums. For many years, the group would choose to play North America, Continental Europe, and the United Kingdom on a three-year rotating cycle.
Many audio recordings exist of Rolling Stones concerts, both official and unofficial. Seventeen official concert albums (eighteen in the US) have been released by the band, 6 of which were previously unreleased concert recordings released from 2011–2012, including the highly bootlegged '' Brussels Affair''. Several of their concerts have also been filmed and released under a variety of titles, such as ''The Stones in the Park'' which records the band's performance at Hyde Park in 1969 on the festival of the same name.
The most famous and heavily documented of all the band's concerts was the Altamont Free Concert
The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Livermore, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, and some a ...
at the Altamont Speedway in 1969, the final show of their American Tour 1969. For this concert, the biker gang Hells Angels
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is a worldwide outlaw motorcycle club whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporati ...
provided security, which resulted in a fan, Meredith Hunter, being stabbed and beaten to death by the Angels after he drew a firearm. Part of the tour and the Altamont concert were documented in Albert and David Maysles' film ''Gimme Shelter
"Gimme Shelter" is a song by English rock band the Rolling Stones. Released as the opening track from band's 1969 album ''Let It Bleed''. The song covers topics of war, murder, rape and fear. It features prominent guest vocals by American singe ...
''. As a response to the growing popularity of bootleg recordings, the album '' Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!'' (UK 1; US 6) was released in 1970; it was declared by critic Lester Bangs
Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician. He wrote for '' Creem'' and ''Rolling Stone'' magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock music ...
to be
the best live album ever.Bangs, Lester"The Rolling Stones: Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out"
. ''Rolling Stone''. 12 November 1970 (accessed 28 April 2007) The biggest concert the band gave was in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
, Brazil, part of the A Bigger Bang Tour, in 2006. The second largest was in 2016, when the band played for the first time in Cuba, during their América Latina Olé
América Latina Olé was a concert tour by The Rolling Stones, which began on 3 February 2016 in Santiago and made stops in La Plata, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Lima, Bogotá, Mexico City and ended in Havana with a ...
tour. An estimated 1.2 million fans, more than half of the population of Havana, saw the Rolling Stones whose music had been banned by the Cuban regime until only nine years before the concert. A live album and film, '' The Rolling Stones: Havana Moon'', were released in 2016.
Concert tour chronology
In bold, the tours which, when completed, became the highest-grossing of all time.See also
*List of highest-grossing concert tours
This is an incomplete list of the highest-grossing concert tours. Only tours using reliable references and having grossed over $100 million (adjusted for inflation) have been added to the list. Some of the gross may be higher than reported ...
*List of highest-grossing live music artists
The highest-grossing live music artists (also known as "highest-grossing touring artists") are reported by ''Billboard'' and ''Pollstar'' boxscores. The cumulative figures may be incomplete because not all concert dates are reported by either pub ...
Notes
References
Works cited * Carr, Roy. ''The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record''. Harmony Books, 1976. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rolling Stones concert tours, List of The Lists of concert tours