The Rolling Stones have a collective age of around one million years, but while most old folks are content to watch Sudo-Q before having a lovely dip in their walk-in bath, The Rolling Stones prefer to spend their time making shedloads of tour money.
Billboard magazine has named The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang world tour as the highest-grossing tour in history, earning $437 million so far. Now the big question is what the Rolling Stones will spend all that tour money on – we're guessing it'll all be handed over to a crack team of Swiss scientists who'll can transplant the elderly Rolling Stones brains into special musical robots with saggy latex faces which can go out on tour for them next time, leaving the band to get up to more age-appropriate activities like putting the TV on full volume, forgetting the names of their relatives and occasionally wetting themselves.
When it comes to world tours, it's easy to break world records. Until recently the holder of the highest-grossing female tour was tight-faced tat-flogger Cher, who took 273 shows of straddling cannons and smiling at homosexuals to get the record. Then, out of nowhere Madonna leaps on a cross and stirs up so much trouble that she was able to become the highest-grossing touring female in just 60 shows.
And this time last year U2 had the honour of being the all-time highest-grossing touring band with their Vertigo tour – quite an achievement for a band who charge people to listen to them play Where The Streets Have No Name and then harangue them about third world poverty for an hour. It's thought that Bono has already spent his share of the tour money on suing people about hats and flying hats around the world on a plane and starting a charity to give every Aids orphan in Africa a nice hat, but he should get his skates on and get touring again because The Rolling Stones have pinched his title, as Billboard reports:
The Rolling Stones have re-captured the "top-grossing tour ever" mantle from U2 with their $437 million A Bigger Bang trek, and tour producer Michael Cohl indicates they may pad that record. From March 28, 2005, to March 2, 2006, U2's Vertigo tour rang up grosses of more than $333 million. That put U2 ahead of the Stones' $320 million Voodoo Lounge tour of 1994-95, and the band's 10 stadium makeup shows this month will take the total to 121 shows and a gross of about $377 million. But the Stones' numbers from A Bigger Bang shatter that mark. Since the fall of 2005, the band has drawn 3.5 million people to 113 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore.
We have to admit that there's a timeless joy that comes with watching a group of elderly men churn out 40-year-old songs for the billionth time, but this tour record has come at a cost for The Rolling Stones. Over the course of their Bigger Bang tour, The Rolling Stones have been insulted about their age at the Super Bowl, censored in China and got complained about for smoking onstage in Scotland. And there's been a great personal cost to The Rolling Stones' tour, too – Mick Jagger has picked up a nasty gammy throat from all the singing and Keith Richards got so drunk that he fell out of a tree onto his head and busted himself up so badly that he needed to have a drill stuck into his brain .
And can that sort of personal injury ever be given a price? Can you really say that having the highest-grossing tour of all time will make The Rolling Stones happy?
Of course they are. They've just made $437 million, can't you read?
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Andrei says
That was funny, specially at the end. I read it smiling and laughed… Thanks for the good writing….
Well, preety soon you will write about SoulsilenS World Tour 2008.
By the way. I am not dreaming… it is already happening.
But, I will be around to talk a lot about it, everywhere.
Now, let me get back to working on my SoulsilenS World Tour 2008.
God bless you, and great job. It will be a pleasure to have you wrinting about us, in the near future.
Andrei
SoulsilenS