The concert business was hit in 2010 by some of the same tough economic times that have been gripping other factions in the music industry in recent years, but New Jersey rock group Bon Jovi has reason to pop the Champagne anyway.

The band posted the highest grossing concert tour of the year not only in North America, but across the globe, topping the $200-million mark worldwide, according to figures released Tuesday by Pollstar, the concert-tracking publication.

Bon Jovi posted total concert revenue of $201.1 million, a little over half that figure -- $108.2 million -- from the North American dates on its world tour.

Behind the group on Pollstar's worldwide ranking is AC/DC with gross ticket sales of $177 million, followed in the top 5 by U2 ($160.9 million), Lady Gaga ($133.6 million) and Metallica ($110.1 million).

Looking only at North American tour numbers, Roger Waters and his remounting of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was second to Bon Jovi with a tour gross of $89.5 million, followed by the Dave Matthews Band ($72.9 million), Canadian pop crooner Michael Bublé ($65.7 million) and the Eagles ($64.5 million).

The big guns, however, couldn't bring up the entire concert business over last year's numbers. The top 50 North American tours combined for an overall take of $1.69 billion, down about 15% from $1.99 billion in 2009. The story was only marginally better throughout the world, where the top 50 total tour gross of $2.93 billion was off about 12% from $3.34 billion a year earlier.

Numbers were down almost across the board: total ticket sales dropped 12% in North America, from 29.9 million in 2009 to 26.2 million last year, and decreased 7% worldwide, from 45.3 million in 2009 to 38.3 million in 2010.

The only increase reported by Pollstar was in the average ticket price worldwide, which went up by $2.86 per ticket, or about 4%. Tickets in North America actually dropped by about $1.55 or 2%. Even Bon Jovi's field-leading $108.2 million for North America was the lowest figure in recent years for the No. 1 spot. The record high belongs to the Rolling Stones, who took in $162 million on their 2005 "A Bigger Bang" tour.

"Artists worked fewer shows in a tough business climate and those that overreached suffered the consequences," Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni said in a statement that accompanied the numbers. "In general, the international concert business was stronger than in North America, where overbooked and overpriced shows at outdoor amphitheater venues made it an especially difficult year for Live Nation," a reference to the world's largest concert promoter.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney has received consistent praise for his stamina, still typically delivering three-hour performances while touring at age 68. But he generally worked fewer nights for more money than most of his peers. His average gross of $3.86 million per night over 21 dates in 2010, and an average ticket price of $138.49, gave him the highest per-concert average in North America, followed by Bon Jovi ($2.85 million), Waters ($2.49 million), Alejandro Fernandez ($2.4 million) and Elton John-Billy Joel ($1.97 million).

Popularity-wise, however, Dave Matthews Band reigned, selling 1.27 million tickets in North America for the year. Bon Jovi was second with 1.18 million, Justin Bieber with 987,000, John Mayer with 894,000 and Brad Paisley with 880,000.

Rounding out the top 10 grossing North American tours were McCartney, who took in $61.8 million over 42 shows in 38 cities. Lady Gaga finished No. 7 with total ticket sales of $51 million, followed by the James Taylor-Carole King "Troubadour" reunion tour that nipped at Gaga's 6-inch spiked heels with a $50.7 million total gross, the Black Eyed Peas at $50.5 million and singer-songwriter guitarist John Mayer at No. 10 with $49.9 million.

Bublé also performed well around the world, finishing at No. 6 behind Metallica with $104.2 million, the "Walking With Dinosaurs" animatronics tour ($104.1 million), McCartney ($93 million), the Eagles (92.3 million) and Waters ($89.5 million).

"Walking With Dinosaurs" attracted more patrons than any other tour, logging almost 2.06 million visitors. But the spectacle's overall gross finished farther down the list because the average ticket price was a comparatively modest $50.56.

Billboard's concert business rankings, which cover a slightly different, non-calendar year -- Nov. 22, 2009-Nov. 20, 2010 -- and factor in worldwide tour revenues, also place Bon Jovi at the top of the heap, with a gross during that period of $146.5 million from sales of nearly 1.59 million tickets.

The rest of the magazine's top five touring acts were largely consistent with Pollstar's, with the No. 2 slot taken by U2 ($131.5 million, 1.31 million tickets), then AC/DC ($122.6 million, 1.16 million tickets), Lady Gaga ($116.2 million, 1.36 million tickets) and Black Eyed Peas ($81.6 million, 1.26 million tickets). U2 scored its penultimate finish with only 22 stadium shows, compared to 69 performances for Bon Jovi.

U2 was tops on Pollstar's list of 2009's biggest tours, posting $123 million and another 1.31 million tickets sold. The Irish quartet was the only act to top the $100-million mark last year, with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band coming in second with $94.5 million, Elton John and Billy Joel's duo tour pulling in $88 million, Britney Spears at $82.5 million and AC/DC fifth with $77.9 million.

Among Pollstar's Top 100 North American tours, the crown for highest average ticket price of 2010 goes to Waters, who charged an average of $126.14 per ticket. That's considerably less than last year's high of $173.89 for Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks Live" tour.

Pollstar will release a full Top 200 early next month in its 2010 Year End Special Edition.

 -- Randy Lewis

Top photo: Jon Bon Jovi led the concert word with over $200-million in concert revenue. Credit: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images.

Bottom photo: Michael Bublé also had a good year, including finishing at No. 6 internationally. Credit: Associated Press.

 
Bruce Springsteen fans who weren't among the 60-some people chosen to sit in on an intimate performance last week at the Carousel House in New Jersey can get a sampling of the songs the Boss and members of the E Street Band played as an adjunct to the release of “The Promise” album featuring outtakes and early versions of songs that ended up on his 1978 album “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

A five-song, 30-minute video from the performance, for which the E Street Band revisisted that period in its career, is streaming through Jan. 1 at Vevo.com and on YouTube. They were joined at the Carousel House by keyboardist Charles Giordano, a full horn section and multi-instrumental whiz David Lindley, who played violin at the original recording sessions.

The set list includes an alternate version of “Racing in the Street,” “Gotta Get That Feeling,” “Ain’t Good Enough For You,” “The Promise” and, in keeping with the time of year in which they were playing, “Blue Christmas.”

The latter includes a special treat for Lindley-philes with shots of him and his gray-white mutton chops emerging from under a red and white Santa hat. And who’s that Bill Gates lookalike on the Boss’ left when he lets fans crowd around him as he sends holiday greetings from himself and the band at the end of the song?

-- Randy Lewis

The boxed set shows a young Bruce Springsteen reaching for greatness his own way.

Let the broken hearts stand as the price you gotta pay — Bruce Springsteen, "Badlands"

You'd better be some kind of genius to ask the world to admire your spiral notebooks. Bruce Springsteen, who's spent a quarter-century-plus absorbing the love of people who feel his music changed their lives, can afford to be that presumptuous. "The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story" is a boxed set disguised as a scrapbook, its packaging full of scribbled lyrics and tentative track listings and notes revealing — celebrating — the painful process of making a masterpiece.

The masterwork in question was the album that, Springsteen writes in the set's liner notes, granted him an adult voice. "More than rich, more than famous, more than happy, I wanted to be great," the 61-year-old admits, chuckling at the twentysomething egotist he was then, in Thom Zimny's fine film about the making of his 1978 album "Darkness on the Edge of Town."

This archival set goes to exhaustive lengths to prove that Springsteen accomplished his goal, though "Darkness" was neither breakthrough (that was 1975's "Born to Run") nor blockbuster (1984's "Born in the U.S.A.," icon jeans-clad derriere and all).

In three DVDs (the making-of film and two live sets, one vintage and one contemporary), a double album of rejected material, and the remastered original album, "The Promise" set illustrates how Springsteen used the circumstances surrounding "Darkness" to hone in on his Monument Valley, to reference his cinematic influence John Ford: a setting, both sonic and lyrical, that could hold the stories he needed to tell.

An ex-manager's lawsuit and the pressure to follow up the hit "Born to Run" put restrictions on the creative process; a monster writing streak, and the dedication of his E Street Band and longtime producer Jon Landau, broke it open. "What we had were our relationships and the music Bruce was writing," says the drummer Max Weinberg. This detailed, ruminative look back is not just an attempt to nab the shrinking music-buying public with a commemorative plaque; it's more like self-analysis, a long-standing creative team's attempt to understand the process it's come to take for granted.

Continuing their efforts to reward music fans who still patronize independent record stores, a coalition of small retailers will be offering exclusive releases on Nov. 26 from rock, pop, R&B and country artists including U2, Metallica, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and many others.

The special releases are part of indie retailers' "Back to Black Friday" promotion for the day after Thanksgiving, typically the heaviest shopping day of the year.

Many are being released on vinyl, which gives rise to the "back to black" theme. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Cee-Lo, Iron & Wine and Drive-By Truckers are among the other acts participating.

"These exclusive pieces not only create nice sales, but a lasting memory and connection between the customer, the store, the employee and the artist, whose importance can't be overstated," Mike Batt, who owns Silver Platters, a Seattle indie music store, said in a statement Thursday.

The store owners also seek to increase awareness of existing retailers each spring with National Record Store Day, which also has become something of a cause celebre among pop and rock stars.

"Many of the great indies have disappeared in recent years, but Record Store Day is giving us yet another chance to show appreciation to this wonderful endangered slice of Americana," Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers said in the same statement.

Among exclusive high-profile reissues coming to the indie stores for the holiday season are a special edition of Harrison's 1970 solo triple-album "All Things Must Pass" and a Hendrix holiday EP, "Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year."

-- Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 album, “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” is the focal point of an expansive reissue package coming Nov. 16, spanning three CDs and three DVDs containing several hours of audio and video  recorded during and shortly after the making of the album.

“The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story” includes two hours of audio and six hours of film footage shot in the recording studio, a live performance in Houston during the Darkness tour and his 2009 performance of the album in its entirety in New Jersey. There’s also  a new 90-minute documentary by director Thom Zimny on the creation of the album Springsteen made in the wake of his breakthrough success with 1975's "Born to Run."

" 'Darkness' was my 'samurai' record, stripped to the frame and ready to rumble," the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer writes in materials that will accompany the set. "But the music that got left behind was substantial."

That includes 21 songs that will be released in official form for the first time. One of those, “Save My Love,” is streaming starting today on Springsteen's website.

The deluxe package also will include an 80-page notebook with facsimiles of Springsteen’s personal notes. A smaller edition will include just the audio component and will be released on two CDs or four LPs, and the deluxe version alternately will be available with three CDs and three Blu-ray discs.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Bruce Springsteen in 1978. Credit: Columbia Records

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Dawn C. Chmielewski over at our sister blog Company Town reports on Thursday's Federal Trade Commission ruling over last year's ticketing flap with Bruce Springsteen. Prior Pop & Hiss coverage on the issue, in which Ticketmaster publicly apologized for redirecting fans trying to purchase Springsteen tickets to auction site TicketsNow, is here. An excerpt from Dawn's post is below:

Calling for an end to deceptive "bait and switch" tactics, the Federal Trade Commission Thursday announced a settlement with Live Nation Entertainment Inc.'s Ticketmaster unit that requires the company to provide full refunds to consumers who bought tickets to 14 Bruce Springsteen concerts at dramatically inflated prices.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said thousands of fans were steered to TicketsNow, a resale site owned by Ticketmaster, where they were charged premiums of double, triple or quadruple the $90 face value.

Other Springsteen fans were sold phantom tickets that never materialized, Leibowitz said. Ticketmaster failed to tell buyers that many of the resale tickets advertised on TicketsNow.com were not “in hand," but being sold speculatively. TicketsNow was only offering to find tickets to the Springsteen concert at the Verizon Center in Washington.

"Who in their right mind would spend $1,600 on tickets that they may or may not get?" Leibowitz said. "Any fan who didn't get a refund -- they will get them from this settlement."

Leibowitz estimated the settlement could refund as much as $1 million to thousands of consumers who were duped.

The FTC also called for dramatic changes in disclosure to make clear to consumers whether tickets are actually "in hand" or if they're being sold speculatively. Leibowitz said his agency is sending out warning letters to 10 other major ticket resellers, recommending that they review their websites "to ensure that you are not making any misleading statements or failing to provide material information to prospective purchasers of tickets listed on your site.”

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Photo: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Read the full post: FTC orders refunds to Springsteen ticket buyers, sweeping changes in ticket resale market

Bruce Springsteen has thrown his support behind legislation backing same-sex marriage in his home state of New Jersey, with a note posted Tuesday night on his website. The proposal is due to be voted on Thursday by the state’s Senate.

“Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I've been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton,” Springsteen writes. “I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor [Jon] Corzine when he writes that, ‘The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is -- a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law.’ "

Springsteen continues, "I couldn't agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now.”

Chris Christie, the state’s incoming Republican governor, however, has said he will veto the measure if it is passed, despite classifying himself as a Springsteen fan. On Monday, the bill was approved by one vote by a state Senate committee, according to the Associated Press, but Democrats are saying they may not have the 21 votes needed for it to pass in the Senate.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Bruce Springsteen at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 2007. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band called off their show Monday night in Kansas City, Mo., after the death of Springsteen’s cousin and road crew member, Lenny Sullivan.

“Lenny Sullivan, Bruce's cousin and the assistant road manager of the E Street Band for the last ten years, passed away today at the age of 36,” said a note posted on Springsteen’s website. “A warm and sensitive person, he was beloved by Bruce, the Band, the crew, and the entire Thrill Hill family.”

Sullivan was found dead in his room at the Intercontinental Hotel shortly before the show was to start, according to reports from Kansas City. Police are investigating it as a “nonsuspicious” death.  No other details were immediately available.

--Randy Lewis

There's been plenty of Bruce Springsteen envy on Pop & Hiss of late.

The artist, who recently turned 60, has been hopping on the latest trend in live music by exploring a number of his classic albums from start to finish. Chicago was recently treated to "Born to Run," and Springsteen's home state of New Jersey is getting the reverential treatment from now through Oct. 9.

Last night, the artist launched a five-night stand at Giants Stadium, a rock 'n' roll farewell to the East Rutherford, N.J. stadium, which will be torn down in 2010. The song, dubbed "Wrecking Ball," plays out as part tribute to the football, and part statement of rebellious survival.

There's working-class tailgating images of dirt and beer, and a sturdy lead-in to a reliant chorus. There's references to Boeing-sized mosquitoes and shout-outs to the Giants. Beginning with a feisty acoustic build, the song stands on protective ground, and is ready for a fight. Growls the Boss, "So if you got the guts, mister / If you’ve got the balls / If you think it’s your time, then step to the line and bring on your wrecking ball."

New Jersey's Star Ledger has a clip of the concert's opening moments leading up to the initial verses of the song. Full versions can be found on YouTube, and are embedded below. Springsteen said the song was "something I wrote for tonight." A spokesman had no further information on the cut. 

It was just a week ago that we raved here on Pop & Hiss at the spectacle that was the Bruce Springsteen show at Chicago's United Center. A three-hour epic rock concert with a tasty nugget lodged in the middle: a complete performance of the 1975 classic "Born To Run".

After the show, many in attendance, including yours truly, ranked the concert as their favorite from Springsteen. Apparently The Boss agreed. 

Los Angeles Times blog czar Tony Pierce was in Chicago this past week to meet with the mother ship. While spending time with our Tribune brothers and sisters, Pierce also took in Bruce Springsteen's visit to the Windy City. Pop & Hiss told him to have a Goose Island and enjoy the show, but he threatened to come back to Los Angeles with a blog post. We weren't surprised when it arrived, but Pierce's rant about what constitutes an encore caught us off guard. Here are his thoughts from Springsteen's concert:  

Most Bruce Springsteen shows are special in one way or another, but Sunday night he and his E Street Band rocked the United Center in Chicago with the energy of twentysomethings.

The spirited show, which many in attendance now consider their favorite Springsteen concert (thanks to an informal exit-polling strategy), was based on a bit of the novelty but rooted in the overwhelming power of the veteran group. The concert was said to be just the second time the band has performed its classic 1975 album, "Born to Run," in its entirety. The first performance of the full collection of songs was for a 2008 benefit gig at the quaint Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, N.J.

The soon-to-be 60-year-old singer explained to the sold-out arena that "Born to Run" was the make-or-break record for him and the band. Columbia Records, he said, was unhappy with the sales of his first two records, "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J."  and "The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle," both released in 1973. 

After the explanation, he placed a harmonica to his mouth and the man who decades ago was hailed as the next Bob Dylan led his band through "Thunder Road" followed by the rest of the tracks of what many consider one of the finest rock albums of all time.

Quick takes of the stellar show after the jump.

Bruce Springsteen, Robert De Niro, Mel Brooks, jazz musician Dave Brubeck and opera singer Grace Bumbry are this year’s recipients of Kennedy Center Honors, which will be bestowed at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 6 and telecast on CBS-TV.

The recipients will be feted by President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama at the White House before the performance gala at the Kennedy Center, where each honoree will be saluted by various peers from the arts world.

-- Randy Lewis