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Biggest Rock Tours of 2013

12/20/2013
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(Gibson) With album sales being down considerably in the past decade artists have to rely much more on touring than before. From a fan's perspective this is a good thing. Your favorite band will probably come around more often, and many have stepped up the quality of their live performances with longer shows and more varied set lists. Billboard recently compiled a list of the 25 most profitable tours over the past year, any category. We were able to distill that information down to the top ten biggest rock tours of 2013. Some acts were pretty much a given to be on the list, but there were certainly some surprises as well. Read on and see for yourself.

1. Bon Jovi: In the Bon Jovi classic "Wanted Dead Or Alive" Jon Bon Jovi sings "I've seen a million faces, and I've rocked them all." Well, during the band's last tour over 2 million faces came to the show. Bon Jovi had the biggest tour of 2013, all genres considered, grossing a massive $205 million over 90 shows. These are some very impressive stats considering Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora was absent for the entire tour. Question remains to be seen if the band could pull off these kind of numbers again without Sambora, or if many of these tickets were sold before fans were aware of the guitarist's absence?

2. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: For someone who has done the amount of touring Bruce Springsteen has in the past decade, it is a testament to his popularity that he is still the second highest ranked rock act with a gross total of over $147 million. Few know how to put on a three hour rock show like Bruce, and the fact that he completely alters the setlist each night brings people back for multiple shows.

3. Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stones only did 23 shows, and still end up as the third highest grossing rock act of 2013 with a total of $126 million. Needless to say, the Stones charged quite a bit for these hard to come by tickets, and they did catch some heat for it as well. But from all accounts the Stones put on a great show night after night, with many concertgoers saying they've never seen the band this fired up. During the tour Keith Richards could be seen playing a TV yellow Les Paul Jr. and a black Gibson ES-355. Former Stones guitarist and special guest for the entire tour Mick Taylor would join the band for a fantastic version of "Midnight Rambler" each night on his Bigsby equipped Gibson Les Paul.

Check out the rest of the list (which does include some non-rock artists) here.

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Copyright Gibson.com - Excerpted here with permission.

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