Record-breaking rock concerts

2006-02-13 09:20

Brazil - The Rolling Stones will play a free concert on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach next Saturday. More than a million people are expected to attend, which would make it one the largest crowds ever for a rock show.

Here are some other notable big shows in a single venue.

- The Guinness Book of Records says the largest free rock concert attendance was for Rod Stewart, also on Copacabana Beach, on New Year's Eve 1994. It reportedly attracted an audience of 3.5 million people.

- The largest paying audience for a solo performer was the estimated 180 000 to 184 000 people who saw Paul McCartney in Rio's Maracana Stadium on April 21 1990, also according to Guinness.

- About 750 000 people saw country star Garth Brooks in New York's Central Park in August 1997.

- The United States festival organised by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak drew 670 000 people to Devore, California, in May 1983 to see U2, David Bowie, Willie Nelson and others.

- The legendary Woodstock Festival in upstate New York in 1969 gathered 400 000 people to see The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and a host of others.

- A free Rolling Stones concert in London's Hyde Park in July 1969, days after the death of guitarist Brian Jones, drew 200 000. Mick Jagger read a Shelley poem and released hundreds of butterflies in tribute to Jones.

- Reuters