Bon Jovi, Springsteen, Spice Girls Lead 2008's Top-Grossing Tours

Bon Jovi and the band's Lost Highway jaunt was named 2008's top-grossing tour, scoring $210.6 million and drawing over 2.1 million fans during a trek that covered both the U.S. and Europe. According to the Billboard Boxscore, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band claimed second place as the Magic tour grossed $204 million. Madonna's ongoing and record-breaking Sticky & Sweet Tour held the third spot thanks to $162 million, the second leg of the Police reunion tour grossed $150 million for fourth and Celine Dion rounded out the top five with $91 million.

The year's top-grossing engagement was the Spice Girls' 17-night sold-out run at London's O2 Arena, which earned $33.8 million, while Celine Dion performed at the year's top-grossing concert, as her return to Quebec and Montreal's Bell Centre made $33.8 million, nearly twice as much as Bonnaroo grossed ($17 million.) Despite the worldwide recession, the touring industry had their best year on record with grosses just under $4 billion, up 13 percent from last year.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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