Biggest audience they ever played for?

[magnetronnie]

I was thinking Wembley (capacity of 90,000 and it was sold out) was perhaps the Goo Goo Dolls performance with the biggest audience ever, but then I remembered that July 4th concert in Philly last year or when was it.. with a few 100,000 people and I believe some 2 mil who watched on TV.

Some other concerts I can think of:

- The 46664 Johannesburg concert was pretty big I guess. The stadium has a capacity of 50,000. I guess not every seat was available, because of the location of the stage, but then again that number is without people standing at the field.
- July 4th, 2004, if I remember right about 60,000 people saw them play.
- European festivals like T in the Park with at least 60,000 people.
- Those two 9/11 concerts, although I have no idea how many people were actually at the concert. The TV exposure must have been millions I guess.
- The other sport games half time show and pre show performances, but I have no idea which one was the biggest stadium/crowd? I don't think anyone of them beats Wembley.

Any other huge crowds they played for?

[nmf]

Wembley did not sell out, regardless of how many people say it was a guaranteed sell out event worth the trip and worth screwing over prior commitments. It also doesn't have a capacity of 90,000 even if the loudest people have insisted it does.

Some random football article from today: "Attendance was 76,981, short of a sellout in the 82,000-capacity Wembley. It's the first time since the NFL began playing regular season games here five years ago that tickets haven't sold out."

OR

Per Wikipedia: Capacity 86,000 (American football)



Some shows you may want to look into further

South Africa stadium shows in 2000
Dodger Stadium 2000
Zootopia at Giants Stadium 2002 (80,000 capacity)
The M-One tour in Australia and New Zealand 2002 -would need to check individual stadiums
Lowe's Motor Speedway 2003 (capacity 140,000)
Daytona International Speedway 2003 (I don't know if the show was a sell out but this was the Dale Earnhardt Tribute show and the capacity is 167,785)
Chicagoland Speedway 2009 (75,000 capacity)

Basically, lots of people like to show up and watch cars waste fuel and wreck shit and possibly see people die.

[kellbells]

The American football thing is a big butted dog & pony on fire show in the UK. It's all flashy spectacle, not really a sporting event.

78,981 is kind of a lot of people to perform in front of even if they weren't all there to see John hit the high notes on Iris. Not hard to argue that the exposure was priceless but much harder to argue that it was worth screwing over a few thousand ticket holders at home.

[magnetronnie]

Thanks Nicole, some interesting concerts there.
I got the info about Wembley from some news articles so I'm sure you're right. Also I thought Barcelona was the only EU stadium with a capacity of over 90,000 people and was surpised about Wembley, but that makes sense now.

"Basically, lots of people like to show up and watch cars waste fuel and wreck shit and possibly see people die."

;D

[dannymcg93]

i was kinda disappointed with john's vocal performance at wembley :/. really glad he can still hit the high note in iris, and i totally understand that touring constantly will affect his voice, just a bit gutted that for the majority of people in the uk will not know how much of an amazing singer he really is, and will judge him solely on that performance. thrilled that they were chosen to play the pre game show though, it's excellent exposure for them!

[kellbells]

Did you get to see it live? Just looked at one of the youtube vids and I thought his voice sounded pretty good -- although I can't imagine the acoustics in a stadium that large would be especially brilliant for anyone's voice. It was all kinds of surreal looking but probably much more fun if a person was actually there.

[HereIsGone]

Yeah, nobody sounds really good on tv show sets/stadiums. I thought he sounded really good hitting those high notes.

[dannymcg93]

i watched it on tv, yeah he did sound quite good at some points but i know he is capable of much better, but like i said, touring as much as they do is going to affect your voice to some extent

[magnetronnie]

Remember he was sick the day before.. or so the story goes.

[dannymcg93]

ah really? i didn't know that, fair play to him then for still hitting the high note in iris!