Live Music in 2006

Baeble Music is only a few months old, so we're not quite ready to do a years-end retrospective on 2006's top concerts. The hyper-updating folks at Stereogum are older, so we're gonna defer to the big boys on this one. Run over to their blog and check out Stereogum's Favorite Live Shows of the Year, which includes write-ups on The Strokes, Sufjan Stevens, and everyone's favorite white-boy emcee/wannabe/divorcee - Kevin Federline.

And now for the top-grossing acts of the year... U2 scored big as they wrapped up the Vertigo Tour, which began in early 2005 in support of the Grammy-winning How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The band grossed over $6 million in just one city, having sold out three consecutive shows at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan. They ultimately finished the year with $96 million, while the Rolling Stones wrapped up their A Bigger Bang tour with a grand tally of $437 million. A Bigger Bang is now the top-grossing tour ever, having passed U2's Vertigo sales two months ago. The Vertigo tour, incidentally, had become the top-grossing tour after passing the Stones' $320 million Voodoo Lounge tour in 1995. It's safe to say that the children of both Bono and Mic Jagger had a very nice Christmas this year...