The Beach Boys franchise is a freak show. The band announced a new tour in February which will run right through the end of October. There has not been a single year of their existence where they haven’t played a significant number of shows — they average 118 gigs per year.
Let’s break it down. From their very first show logged on Setlist.fm on Dec. 23, 1961 to Feb. 22, 2024 — the band (or musicians calling themselves The Beach Boys) played 7,295 shows. I say “musicians calling themselves The Beach Boys” because there have been more than 60 touring musicians in the group over the years since it all started with Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, cousin Mike Love and pal Al Jardine.
There have been 22,706 days from the first gig to the most recent one. Calculating 7,295 gigs, it works out to a rate of about 10 concerts a month for 62 years. During this run, there were 10 times the band played more than 150 shows a year. They played 100 or more gigs a year 40 times.
The current band has one original member, Love, as well as long-time member Bruce Johnson. Brian isn’t joining them on their current Endless Summer Gold Tour due to the recent death of his wife Melinda and his own health issues. The remaining band members are musical director Brian Eichenberger, Christian Love, Tim Bonhomme, Jon Bolton, Keith Hubacher, Randy Leago and John Wedemeyer.
I got onto this subject of bands with heavy workloads while reading Black Sabbath bassist / lyricist Geezer Butler’s memoir Into The Void. Specifically, Geezer talks about the two-week period when the band were recording their third album Master Of Reality and how the previous two years and two albums had gone by in a flash. Their second album Paranoid was recorded in two days. By the time they got to their fourth album — Vol. IV — they had the luxury of spending two months on it, in a sea of booze and coke. In fact, Butler wrote about how their drug use and insane gig schedule between the U.K. and the U.S. literally led to collapse. This reality was reflected in the track Killing Yourself To Live from their fifth album, 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
So I got into digging myself a new rabbit hole in search of the busiest, most-overworked periods of well-known bands and musicians. One thing is clear: Bands from the pre-MTV era were so much busier than the ones who had music videos to pick up the slack. Those British Invasion bands of the ’60s were the most overworked, but the ’70s arena rockers also had a tough row to hoe. One modern band with some shocking numbers is Australian children’s entertainers The Wiggles. They would never have been on the likes of MTV — but they did have their own TV show and loads of specials. That certainly doesn’t slow them down. Depending on where you get your data from, some sources indicate The Wiggles have done upwards of 500 shows a year.
But I decided to exclusively use setlist.fm as a source for my raw data, which I then further analyzed for perspective. So, many of these numbers are more likely to be higher than what’s shown, not less. In each case, I went looking for a well-established busy band’s busiest period in terms of consecutive years with loads of gigs. Then, I also added up the studio albums done during that same time period, along with a few other interesting facts.
So, have a gander at these numbers which should answer the musical question: Is being a rock star an easy job?
Black Sabbath
Busiest period: Jan. 3, 1970 to Nov. 29, 1971
• 695 days / 296 shows = 13 shows a month
• Three studio albums (one every eight months)
• Average band member age at the time: 22
• Most gigs in a single year: 175 (1970)
Rush
Busiest period: Jan. 15, 1974 to Dec. 30, 1977
• 1,445 days / 689 shows = 15 shows per month
• Five studio albums (one very nine months)
• Average age: 22
• Most gigs in a single year: 183 (1975)
Blue Öyster Cult
Busiest period: Feb. 4, 1973 to Dec. 31, 1979
• 2,521 days / 841 shows = 11 shows per month
• Five studio albums (one every 16 months)
• Average age: 25
• Most gigs in a single year: 133 (1974)
Cheap Trick
Busiest period: April 22, 1976 to Dec. 31, 1979
• 1,348 days / 585 shows = 13 shows per month
• Four studio albums (one every 11 months)
• Average age: 28
• Most gigs in a single year: 181 (1977)
The Beatles
Busiest period: Jan. 5, 1961 to Dec. 31, 1964
• 1,456 days / 1,212 shows = 26 shows per month
• Four studio albums (one every 11 months)
• Average band member age at the time: 21
• Most gigs in a single year: 391 (1962)
Bruce Springsteen
Busiest period: Jan. 3, 1973 to Dec. 8, 1974
• 704 days / 345 shows = 15 shows per month
• Two studio albums (one every 11 months)
• Age: 25
• Most gigs in a single year: 209 (1973)
Grateful Dead
Busiest period: Jan. 1 1967 to Dec. 31 1970
• 1,460 days / 522 shows = 11 shows per month
• Six studio albums (one every eight months)
• Average age: 26
• Most gigs in a single year: 140 (1970)
The Ramones
Busiest period: Jan. 28, 1977 to Dec. 31, 1980
• 1,433 days / 640 shows = 14 shows per month
• Four studio albums (one every 12 months)
• Average age: 27
• Most gigs in a single year: 174 (1980)
AC/DC
Busiest period: Jan. 15, 1975 to Dec. 20, 1980
• 2,166 days / 890 shows = 13 shows per month
• Seven studio albums (one every 10 months)
• Average age: 23
• Most gigs in a single year: 171 (1976)
B.B. King
Busiest period: Jan. 1, 1994 to Dec. 31 2008
• 5,478 days / 1,712 shows = 10 shows per month
• 10 studio albums (one every 18 months)
• Age: 75
• Most gigs in a single year: 184 (1996)
The Rolling Stones
Busiest period: Jan. 3, 1963 to Dec. 5, 1965
• 1,051 days / 722 shows = 22 shows per month
• Three studio albums (one every 11 months)
• Average age: 21
• Most gigs in a single year: 262 (1964)
The Who
Busiest period: Jan. 4, 1963 to Dec. 21, 1968
• 2178 days / 1,154 shows = 17 shows per month
• Four studio albums (one every 17 months)
• Average age: 21
• Most gigs in a single year: 260 (1965)
The Kinks
Busiest period: Jan. 31, 1964 to Dec. 17, 1966
• 1051 days / 668 shows = 20 shows per month
• Four studio albums (one every 8.5 months)
• Average age: 22
• Most gigs in a single year: 290 (1964)
The Wiggles
Busiest period: Jan. 19, 2000 to Dec. 23 2023
• 8,739 days / 5,800 shows = 22 shows per month
• 52 studio albums (one every five months)
• Average age: 50
• Most gigs in a single year: 341 (2018)
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
