Ranking the best music concerts ever held on college campuses (2024)

Just a year removed from the release of the globally successful 'Thriller' album, thesixJackson brothers descended upon Tennessee's Neyland stadium for a trio of concerts in August 1984 as a leg on "The Victory Tour" — pandemonium ensued. Michael, at the height of his powers, was well on his way to becoming a transcendental figure in the music industry, and everyone wanted a glimpse. With a modest ticket price of $29.75 ($83.69 with inflation), the Jacksons sold out each show. An estimated 148,407 fans filled the stadium over the three nights, the largest non-football gathering since Billy Graham held a series of religious services at the stadium 14 years earlier. The Jacksons played a diverse setlist, featuring several of Michael's biggest hits: "Billie Jean," "Beat It" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin," among others.

"It's going to bring great international and national attention to Knoxville," Bo Roberts, the show's promoter, said at the time,via WBIR. "It's going to provide the people from this area an opportunity to be a part of something people are billing as very historical."

It is estimated that the concerts grossed $6 million in ticket sales and $10 million for the local economy. Michael donated the entirety of the tour's paycheck to charity. Neyland would not host another concert for 18 years.

George Strait continues to set records more than four decades into his career. The "King of Country" hosted 110,905 fans at Texas A&M's Kyle Field in June, breaking an all-time attendance record for a ticketed concert. The previous record was held by the Grateful Dead from a 1977 performance in New Jersey in front of 107,019 fans, according toBillboard. Strait belted out 26 songs in a single set and closed with a five-song encore that featured fan favorites "All My Ex's Live in Texas" and "The Cowboy Rides Away." It marked Strait's lone show in the Lone Star State in 2024.

Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead arrived in Chapel Hill on March 24, 1993 for two nights of revelry. The "Deadhead" faithful came with them, and Tar Heel columnist Lee Pace recalled the eclectic scene on Franklin Street leading up to the show.

"'Peace, pot and microdot, that's our motto,' said one fan," Pace recalled. "Tents and sleeping bags all over town amid the aroma of the weed."

The first night featured a 17-song setlist with a cover of The Beatles' hit, "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," for the encore. The Smith Center would host four more shows over the next four years before shuttering its concert doors following Kiss' Alive/Worldwide tour in 1997.

Fifth Dimension, a now-defunct bar residing on W. Huron Street in Ann Arbor, was one of Michigan's most notable adult clubs in its heyday and hosted many international acts, including The Who, Cream and Pink Floyd. On Aug. 15, 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience stopped at the club as a part of its first U.S. tour and played two shows at 7 p.m. and 10 pm.

TheDetroit Free Presssent its Teen Editor, Loraine Alterman, to cover the performance.

"The Jimi Hendrix Experience proved themselves to be a tremendously exciting act," Alterman wrote,via Ann Arbor Observer. ", Hendrix, with hair a la Dylan, puts on a show with his brilliant guitar work and electric stage presence. He's hip without being a hippie–that is, he's without the pretentiousness and pomposity. The group is tight and musically disciplined, while their music is freed from traditional constraints."

Built in 1922, Ohio State's home stadium went 66 years before holding its first concert in 1988, when English supergroup Pink Floyd came to town. Tickets ran $20, with Ohio State students, faculty and employees getting first dibs three days before sales opened to the public. Over 64,000 people attended the performance, which featured a laser-light show and a small group of protesters from Jed Smock's Campus Ministry USA, who urged concertgoers to "repent" for their "worship" of the band,per The Columbus Dispatch.

The show was a smashing success, and when the band returned in 1994, a total of 75,520 people attended, a record for a concert in Ohio Stadium. The venue has only hosted 12 total concerts since Pink Floyd's first date, with its last pulling a crowd of 35,083 for Beyoncé and Jay Z in 2018.

A decade removed from releasing its magnum opus, "Rumours," Fleetwood Mac made its way to South Carolina for its eighth stop on The Shake the Cage Tour in 1987. Stevie Nicks and company played a whopping 22 songs for attendees, including two of Nicks' solo hits, "Stand Back" and "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You." The band opened with "Say You Love Me" and followed with two of its biggest hits, "The Chain" and "Dreams." Fleetwood Mac closed its 20-song first set with "Go Your Own Way" and stayed for a two-song encore of "Don't Stop" and "Songbird."

A stop a Tiger Stadium was a no-brainer for Brooks, a consummate showman, whose impressive repertoire of platinum and diamond-selling singles just so happens to feature his chart-topping version of "Callin' Baton Rouge." Brooks belted out the hit on April 30, 2022, in front of a raucous crowd north of 102,000, and the collected cheers were so loud that a seismograph located in the Nicholson Building on LSU's campus reportedly recorded a small earthquake, per ABC13. Brooks dubbed the event the "Garthquake."

Believe it or not, the name doesn't say it all. In 1974, ZZ Top arrived in Austin with a motley troupe of big-time artists that included Bad Company, Santana and Joe co*cker. Vendors served barbeque at $2.50 a plate, but supplies quickly ran out as the crowd swelled northwards of 80,000

"It was chaos," W. Blaine Pennington, a concert photographer, said. "They were completely unprepared for the crowd that came. "You had to prepare yourself that you'd be in for a survivalistic experience, because otherwise you were going to suffer. The bathrooms were a wreck, the sinks had been broken off the walls. People were trying to get water, but there was a lot of damage."

According to ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, the damage done to the stadium and field upset Texas head coach Darrell Royal.

"I remember having to sit face-to-face in front of Darrell Royal, trying to explain why his AstroTurf had been carved out in the shape of Texas, which took up the 50-yard line into the 40-yard line," Gibbons said, via Texas Monthly.

The Longhorns would not host another concert at Memorial Stadium for over 20 years.

On the second biggest tour of the band's prolific career, the Rolling Stones, along with supporting act, The Spin Doctors, played a single show at Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Nov. 27, 1994, in support of their albumVoodoo Lounge.Mick Jagger and company played a 24-song set, and the entirety of the concert spanned over three hours. The pyrotechnics used for the show were cutting edge at the time and the stage featured a giant scorpion tailthat rose over 100 feet into the air. It would be the last concert held in The Swamp until Lynyrd Skynyrd rolled into town in 2007.

The "Fab Four" crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1964 for their first of just two North American tours. On their 11th stop, the Beatles played two shows at Indiana Farmers Coliseum, the current home of the IUPUI Jaguars basketball team. The Beatles handler, Ira Sidelle of General Artists Corp., wrote out a simple set of concert requests three weeks before the show took place.

"We would appreciate it very much if the lads' dressing room could be equipped with a supply of clean towels, chairs, a case of cold Coca Cola, and if at all possible, a portable TV set," Sidelle wrote,via USA Today.

The two shows were watched by a total of 29,337 and the band played their standard 12-song set at the time, which opened with hit, "Twist and Shout" and ended with "Long Tall Sally."According to The Beatles Bible, Ringo Starr went missing prior to the first concert and arrived just minutes before the band was due to go on stage, "explaining that he he had lost track of time while driving a police car around a nearby race track."