Concert

English musical composer and violinist John Banister staged London's first lucrative public music concert on December 30, 1672. The first of a series of concerts given at his own house, at Whitefriars, London, he charged one shilling admission. The audience, on payment of their admission, were entitled to demand what music they wished to be performed.

Promenade Concerts are concerts where inexpensive tickets are sold for promenaders who stand throughout in a specially designated area. They derive from open-air concerts given in the pleasure gardens of 18th-century London, where people would literally “promenade” to hear music, among other attractions.

Cyanide pills were distributed to audience members of the last Berlin Philharmonic concert on April 12, 1945. The concert took place in the midst of World War II, as Allied forces were approaching Berlin and the surrender of Germany seemed imminent. The program included works by Richard Wagner, including the finale from Götterdämmerung, which is a story about the end of the world. 

It is believed that the cyanide pills were distributed by members of the Hitler Youth, who were a Nazi youth organization. It is not known how many people took the pills, but it is believed that some did. The concert was the last time that the Berlin Philharmonic performed under the Nazi regime.

Cyanide pills were distributed to audience members of the last Berlin Philharmonic concert on April 12, 1945 as Allied forces approached Berlin and the surrender of Germany seemed imminent.

The Moondog Coronation Ball held at the Cleveland Arena in Cleveland, Ohio on March 21, 1952 is generally accepted as the first major rock and roll concert. The concert was organized by disc jockey Alan Freed, who is considered to have coined the term "Rock and Roll," along with Lew Platt, a local concert promoter.

The Beatles played to nearly 60,000 fans on August 15, 1964 at Shea Stadium in New York. The concert was the first-ever open-air stadium rock concert and it set a world record for attendance figures, with over 55,600 fans in attendance. The concert helped to launch the Beatles into superstardom and it also helped to popularize the concept of stadium rock concerts. The event was later regarded as the birth of stadium rock.

ZZ Top played their first ever concert on February 10, 1970 at a Knights of Columbus Hall on the old U.S. 90 outside of Houston. When the curtains opened there was just one person in the audience. Billy Gibbons recalled to Q magazine: "We shrugged and pressed onwards. We took a break halfway through, went out and bought him a Coke."

The Who made it into the Guinness Book Of Records in the late 1970s for the loudest ever gig. Their concert at Charlton Athletic Football ground on May 31, 1976 was measured at 120 decibels from 50 metres away. 

In 1978, Bob Dylan performed at "The Picnic at Blackbushe" at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire, England. It was said as many as 200,000 people turned out to bask in the sun and listen to the music.

The "Live Aid", the benefit concert held for the Ethiopian famine in 1985 was well intended. However, it actually gave £150 million to the Ethiopian Dictatorship and they used the money to mostly buy weapons from the Soviet Union and further fueled their civil war.

The record for the largest concert attendance in history is shared by Rod Stewart who performed for over 3.5 million people in Rio de Janeiro in 1993 and Jean Michel Jarre whose 1997 Celebration of the 850th birthday of Moscow show in 1987 was also attended by 3.5 million.

The Rolling Stones become in 1994 the first rock act to stream a live concert on the Internet, webcasting a portion of a show from Dallas, Texas.

Over 2.5 million people applied for tickets to see Oasis at Knebworth Festival in Knebworth, England in 1996. This meant the possibility of 20 sold out nights. It remains the largest demand for concert tickets in British history.

On June 14, 1996, the electronic music duo Leftfield delivered a performance of unprecedented volume. The venue for this momentous concert was the Brixton Academy in London. Leftfield's electrifying show resonated with a thunderous intensity, reaching a staggering decibel level of 137. To put that into perspective, it is equivalent to the roar of a jet aircraft taking off. Such was the magnitude of the sound that it even caused particles of dust and plaster to cascade from the ceiling, adding to the spectacle and intensity of the experience.  It was the loudest ever concert in the UK.

The loudest ever concert was performed by the German heavy metal band Manowar in 2008 at the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. The soundcheck for the concert reached a decibel level of 139, which is equivalent to the sound of a jet taking off. The concert itself was measured at 130 decibels, which is still extremely loud and can cause hearing damage.

Manowar is known for their loud concerts and their love of heavy metal. They have been called "the loudest band in the world" and have held the Guinness World Record for the loudest concert on three occasions.

On average, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones covers 12 miles of running, walking, jumping and dancing during a concert.

In 2007, the British jazz-funk band Jamiroquai gave a performance on Boeing 757 traveling at 1017 km/h (632 mph), setting the Guinness World Record for "fastest concert."

Katie Melua holds the world record for the deepest underwater concert after performing 303 metres (994 feet) below sea level in the leg of a gas rig in the North Sea in 2009.

Director Dan Catullo set a Guinness World Record for using the most cameras (239) to record a live concert when he helmed the 2009 DVD Creed: Live.

30 Seconds to Mars earned themselves a place in the Guinness Book Of Records with their gig at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom on December 7, 2011. It was their 300th concert in support of their This Is War record breaking the world record for most shows performed during a single album cycle.

Seconds to Mars, Anfiteatro Camerini Wikipedia

The Flaming Lips made history in June 2012 by setting a new Guinness World Record for the most concerts performed in multiple cities in a 24-hour time period. The shows were required to be at least 15 minutes long, as per Guinness rules. The attempt started in Memphis, Tennessee on the afternoon of June 27th when the rock band boarded their bus, aptly named Endeavor, to zigzag across the region. Their marathon ended in New Orleans on the afternoon of June 28th, with 20 minutes to spare.

On December 8, 2013, Metallica made history when they performed a rare concert under a dome at the Carlini Argentine Base in Antarctica. They became the first act to ever play all seven continents all within a year, and earning themselves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The longest concert in the world is "Organ²/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible)", a composition by American experimental composer John Cage. It was first performed in 2001 at the former St. Burchard church in Halberstadt, Germany, and is scheduled to continue until 2640. The piece is played on a specially designed organ that can play notes at an extremely slow tempo. The first note change occurred in 2008, and the next one was scheduled for 2020.

An encore is a call for an additional performance to be given at the end of a concert. It is from the French encore, which means "again." The French themselves call une autre ('another'), un rappel ('a return') or the Latin bis ('second time') in the same circumstances.

Source Microsoft® Encarta® 99 Encyclopedia.