Pop stars or rock heroes: Who wins the stadium tickets battle?

P!nk and Taylor Swift owned our stadiums at the start of 2024. With Coldplay and Pearl Jam touring and Green Day, Metallica and Oasis to come, can rock rule the big gigs again?

It would be impossible for an artist to break P!nk’s concert box office record for 2024, selling almost one million tickets for her triumphant Summer Carnival tour of Australia this year.

Pop artists have owned the country’s biggest venues in 2024, with Taylor Swift’s seven Eras tour concerts reportedly selling more than 600,000 tickets.

And a couple of weeks ago, about 233,000 fans witnessed the epic After Hours Til Dawn shows by The Weeknd in Sydney and Melbourne.

Now it’s the turn of the bands to reclaim their stadium supremacy, led by Coldplay and Pearl Jam this year and Metallica and Oasis next year.

Coldplay’s Chris Martin performs at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne this week. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

While Live Nation is yet to tout how many tickets Coldplay have sold for the eight Music of the Spheres shows in Melbourne and Sydney this month, estimates based on the capacity of the stadiums would put more than 520,000 fans at the big gigs.

Pearl Jam kick off their Dark Matter World Tour stadium shows on the Gold Coast on November 13 before taking over Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on November 16 and 18 and then Sydney’s Engie Stadium on November 21 and 23.

Only limited tickets remain for their second Melbourne and Sydney shows, with the band expected to play to more than 200,000 fans on their first tour here in a decade.

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready and frontman Eddie Vedder at the Dark Matter gig at Madison Square Garden on September 3. Picture: Jim Bennett/Getty Images.

The stadium tours announced for 2025 include Green Day opening 2025 with three east coast concerts and Metallica and Oasis hitting the huge stages in November next year.

But one of the biggest box offices surprises has been American country music superstar Luke Combs.

The Fast Car chartslayer will kick off the year with six shows – two each at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Accor Stadium in Sydney and Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium.

Tickets for the January and February shows were so hot all six sold out in mere minutes when they went on sale in September.

American country phenomenon Luke Combs has sold out six Aussie stadiums on his 2025 tour. Picture: David Bergman

The return of rock bands to our stadiums comes as the genre has become popular music’s underdog according to industry measurements like streams, views and chart positions for new records.

Pearl Jam released their 12th studio album Dark Matter in April and it debuted at No. 2 on the ARIA charts behind Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department which was released the same week.

But Australian music fans clearly still possess a voracious appetite to see the global rock superstars perform here regardless of the chart fortunes of their latest record.

Unlike solo pop acts, with the exception of P!nk whose fanbase in Australia is pretty much everyone, rock bands are more able to extend their careers into the decades because of the generational refresh of their audience.

Parents or older siblings share their music on those long holiday car ride or family gatherings seeding an enduring love of the band which translates to high demand for concert tickets when they tour here.

Metallica will be stadium slayers in Australia next year. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty Images.

There is also the influence of video game soundtracks and TikTok nostalgia trends turning Gen Z onto rock music.

Pearl Jam’s guitarist Mike McCready said he has witnessed the influx of a new generation of younger fans during the American leg of their Dark Matter tour.

“That’s the one thing that’s blown me away, is people bring their families on the road and we don’t take that lightly because how do you afford that, especially in the world today?” he said.

“I appreciate the fact that the music speaks to another generation; as a band, you want that but it’s something that you can’t force to happen.

“Parents playing the music in the car … kids can go ‘This is crap, we don’t like this, I don’t wanna like my parents’ band.’ Or my grandparents’ band for that matter.

“I love kids coming up and saying ‘This is my first Pearl Jam show ever!’ It reminds me of being a kid and starting to play guitar when I was 12.”

Pearl Jam play their five big gigs in Australia for a decade. Picture: Supplied.

McCready said he went through the same rite of passage as millions of young boys whose music discovery started with legacy rock acts including Australian legends AC/DC.

“I discovered rock at 11 and of course, AC/DC with Bon Scott was my jam back in the day and The Angels, I loved Doc Neeson,” he said.

“Maybe I am in some denial about the whole ‘Rock is dead!’ part of it but it does go through phases and I’m happy to hear kids are picking up guitars again, because I know the excitement of that for me as a kid and how important it was to me, how the guitar was my friend and a way to get together with other friends and to have a purpose.”

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, who will play the upcoming Good Things rock festival shows with Australian rockers Delta Riggs, agreed that if rock is the underdog in 2024, it’s barking loudly.

Billie Joe Armstrong and his Green Day brothers bring their Saviors World Tour to Australia in early 2025. Picture: Jamie Squire/Getty Images/AFP.

He recently finished touring with Green Day on their Saviors stadium tour in the US with a bill that also included punk bands Rancid and the Linda Lindas.

“You can take those bands and sell out a stadium of more than 50,000 people and yet you look at American culture and you don’t really see a reflection of that strength, that just shows you how far mainstream culture is away from what people are actually paying attention to,” he said.

“There’s no rock on the pop charts and where that disconnect has happened over the last 10 to 15 years is beyond me. If you looked at that audience at the Green Day shows in LA, that was a very young audience for bands whose members are in their 50s.

“So rock music and its messaging, past, present or future, is clearly connecting with a lot of young people.”

Coldplay continue their Australian tour in Melbourne and Sydney this week with Pearl Jam opening their shows on November 13. Green Day tickets now on sale and the Metallica general ticket sale opens from 12pm (local time) on November 4.

Originally published as Pop stars or rock heroes: Who wins the stadium tickets battle?