Lionel Richie, Phil Collins and such drew an older, more sedate crowd than did Prince and Madonna.

bigbrother said:

In the MTV video age when he developed there were plenty of artists who were big in terms of sales but not very good live on stage, e.g. Phil Collins, Madonna (sorry Madonna fans), Lionel Ritchie, Culture Club, etc.

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Dude, Madonna earned tons of money through her tours in the 1980s and 1990s. Prince often lost money. https://en.wikipedia.org/...rformances

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In 1990, she embarked on the Blond Ambition World Tour, which was dubbed as the "Greatest Concert of the 1990s" by Rolling Stone.[ BBC credited the tour with "invent[ing] the modern, multi-media pop spectacle".

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This juvenile "my artist is better than yours" nonsense...

laytonian said:

Lionel Richie, Phil Collins and such drew an older, more sedate crowd than did Prince and Madonna.

That is wholly untrue. I don't know where you guys get these ideas.

Pointer Sisters opened for Lionel Richie on the All Night Long Tour. The crowd was mostly high schoolers or 20 somethings. These were artists on the Top 40 and Top 20 charts year after year. You think it was the "sedate" crowd who ate up "All Night Long," "Running with the Night" (which, by the way, had Sheila E. in the video and was his drummer on said tour right when she started showing up around Prince, too), "Jump (For My Love)," "Automatic," etc. Sedate, my ass!

Phil Collins had every teenager-turned-drummer and their girlfriend at his shows, plus the college aged kids who dug the prog-rock approach of Genesis.

To the OP to say Madonna wasn't good on stage is simply obtuse, at best. Madonna and Bowie created the whole stadium genre. Look at the Who's That Girl? Tour and Glass Spider Tour (respectively). No one was doing that kind of production. (By the way, I saw both of those tour weeks apart in Philadelphia at Veterna's Stadium, not some indoor arena, which Prince mostly stuck to for Purple Rain Tour and smaller for most (not all) of the Hit n' Run/Parade Tour.

My point: People don't fill stadiums for someone who's just okay on stage.

I don't think a non-stage Prince was even possible, so it's a trick question. Someone that talented wasn't not going to perform live.

BartVanHemelen said:

luv2tha99s said:

Dude, neither box office receipts nor favorable Rolling Stone reviews do a good show make.

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Read the question that started this thread.

TrivialPursuit said:

laytonian said:

Lionel Richie, Phil Collins and such drew an older, more sedate crowd than did Prince and Madonna.

That is wholly untrue. I don't know where you guys get these ideas.

Pointer Sisters opened for Lionel Richie on the All Night Long Tour. The crowd was mostly high schoolers or 20 somethings. These were artists on the Top 40 and Top 20 charts year after year. You think it was the "sedate" crowd who ate up "All Night Long," "Running with the Night" (which, by the way, had Sheila E. in the video and was his drummer on said tour right when she started showing up around Prince, too), "Jump (For My Love)," "Automatic," etc. Sedate, my ass!

Phil Collins had every teenager-turned-drummer and their girlfriend at his shows, plus the college aged kids who dug the prog-rock approach of Genesis.

To the OP to say Madonna wasn't good on stage is simply obtuse, at best. Madonna and Bowie created the whole stadium genre. Look at the Who's That Girl? Tour and Glass Spider Tour (respectively). No one was doing that kind of production. (By the way, I saw both of those tour weeks apart in Philadelphia at Veterna's Stadium, not some indoor arena, which Prince mostly stuck to for Purple Rain Tour and smaller for most (not all) of the Hit n' Run/Parade Tour.

My point: People don't fill stadiums for someone who's just okay on stage.

I don't think a non-stage Prince was even possible, so it's a trick question. Someone that talented wasn't not going to perform live.

Given that the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour started the same year, and was a bigger production than either Glass Spider or Who's That Girl, I would say Pink Floyd were at least equally responsible for creating the stadium genre. Makes no difference to the point you're making, but in the interests of accuracy (and pedantry)....

AsylumUtopia said:

Given that the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour started the same year, and was a bigger production than either Glass Spider or Who's That Girl, I would say Pink Floyd were at least equally responsible for creating the stadium genre. Makes no difference to the point you're making, but in the interests of accuracy (and pedantry)....

At risk of this thread getting moved, MJ's Bad tour was also in the same year as Who's That Girl and Glass Spider. Don't know where it ranks in terms of production costs but it seemed like an expensive show. I was lucky enough to see both the Who's That Girl and Bad tours at Wembley stadium. Funnily enough, as great as the shows were, I was never compelled to go and see either of them live again. Some years later, I saw Prince at Wembley stadium and never got enough of seeing hm perform live.

Whatever way you look at it, it's safe to say that 1987 was a stellar year for stadium tours.

TheEnglishGent said:

AsylumUtopia said:

Given that the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour started the same year, and was a bigger production than either Glass Spider or Who's That Girl, I would say Pink Floyd were at least equally responsible for creating the stadium genre. Makes no difference to the point you're making, but in the interests of accuracy (and pedantry)....

At risk of this thread getting moved, MJ's Bad tour was also in the same year as Who's That Girl and Glass Spider. Don't know where it ranks in terms of production costs but it seemed like an expensive show. I was lucky enough to see both the Who's That Girl and Bad tours at Wembley stadium. Funnily enough, as great as the shows were, I was never compelled to go and see either of them live again. Some years later, I saw Prince at Wembley stadium and never got enough of seeing hm perform live.

Whatever way you look at it, it's safe to say that 1987 was a stellar year for stadium tours.

Good point, I forgot about the Bad tour, definitely a big production. At further risk to the thread, the Genesis Invisble Touch tour was also that year, as was U2's The Joshua Tree tour. Although both played various stadia on those tours I don't think either of them were on the same level production-wise.

Yes, definitely a great year for stadium tours.

AsylumUtopia said:

TrivialPursuit said:

To the OP to say Madonna wasn't good on stage is simply obtuse, at best. Madonna and Bowie created the whole stadium genre. Look at the Who's That Girl? Tour and Glass Spider Tour (respectively). No one was doing that kind of production.

Given that the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour started the same year, and was a bigger production than either Glass Spider or Who's That Girl, I would say Pink Floyd were at least equally responsible for creating the stadium genre. Makes no difference to the point you're making, but in the interests of accuracy (and pedantry)....

I never saw it or knew much about it, but I'll take your word on it. I saw Glass Spider, and that shit was massive. Not just the size of the stage and it being a damn spider, but all the theatrics on the stage. There's no way you could watch everything. Two dancers would be over here doing one thing, and another dancer down stage doing something else, then another dancer with a couple of musicians doing something on their own. Then Bowie wherever doing whatever. It was insane. Madonna's told a story in sections (industrial, religious, art deco, dick tracy, encore). Bowie's was more like moving art. I've no doubt Pink Floyd added to the aesthetic, although I would imagine they didn't have dancers or sections. Just big light shows and big music.

TrivialPursuit said:

AsylumUtopia said:

Given that the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour started the same year, and was a bigger production than either Glass Spider or Who's That Girl, I would say Pink Floyd were at least equally responsible for creating the stadium genre. Makes no difference to the point you're making, but in the interests of accuracy (and pedantry)....

I never saw it or knew much about it, but I'll take your word on it. I saw Glass Spider, and that shit was massive. Not just the size of the stage and it being a damn spider, but all the theatrics on the stage. There's no way you could watch everything. Two dancers would be over here doing one thing, and another dancer down stage doing something else, then another dancer with a couple of musicians doing something on their own. Then Bowie wherever doing whatever. It was insane. Madonna's told a story in sections (industrial, religious, art deco, dick tracy, encore). Bowie's was more like moving art. I've no doubt Pink Floyd added to the aesthetic, although I would imagine they didn't have dancers or sections. Just big light shows and big music.

I didn't see it either - I didn't see any of those shows (I have few regrets, but one of them is turning down a free ticket to one of the Momentary Lapse concerts, I had something else on, but still, I should have gone). Glass Spider sounds pretty impressive, I wish I'd seen that one too.

Momentary Lapse was the highest grossing tour of 1987-88, not that that necessarily marks them out as creators of the stadium genre, but it certainly puts them up there as one of the most successful at it.

The Wall tour, which was in 1980-81, is really what one could argue earns Pink Floyd their place as creators of the stadium genre. While it was a very short tour, that's only because Roger Waters thought it would be hypocritical to embark on a huge stadium tour, given the subject matter. For many, it's still the yardstick against which stadium shows are measured.

AsylumUtopia said:

I didn't see it either - I didn't see any of those shows (I have few regrets, but one of them is turning down a free ticket to one of the Momentary Lapse concerts, I had something else on, but still, I should have gone). Glass Spider sounds pretty impressive, I wish I'd seen that one too.

I think you can sorta find Glass Spider Tour on yoUTube if you dig around. I forget the city it was filmed in, but to my knowledge it's the only broadcast quality one out there. I'm not huge into Bowie, so if there are others, I'd be unaware of them. It was sorta like if Bowie had a traveling circus show. That's what Glass Spider looked like on stage. And I wasn't even a Bowie fan beyond his mid 80's hits when I saw the tour in 1987. But it was something else. I guess it prepared me when I saw Lovesexy in LA the next November.

I recall that Prince said he did not make any money off recording. His revenue came from live shows and all the related merch.

wonderboy said:

I recall that Prince said he did not make any money off recording. His revenue came from live shows and all the related merch.

Post-Napster, that's true. Dave Matthews said the same thing.