10 best concerts of 2024: Where do Olivia Rodrigo, Billy Joel, Missy Elliott rank?

When not one, but two touring records are smashed the same year, you know it was a extraordinary live music season.

Perhaps you’ve heard Taylor Swift’s recently wrapped Eras Tour, a 3 ½-hour blitz unseen since the glory days of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, grossed a cool $2.2 billion, according to concert industry touchstone Pollstar.

But equally as impressive is Coldplay’s unstoppable Music of the Spheres World Tour, which has sold more than 10.3 million tickets – the most ever by an artist in the history of live music – since its March 2022 kickoff. With 48 more shows tapped for 2025, the band will continue to augment its $1.14 billion in sales, which so far make it the second highest-grossing tour of all time.

There were many supersized stadium romps from veterans. Another how-is-this-possible? run by the Rolling Stones. A reminder of the adrenalized rush of punk-rock provided by Green Day. Several combined hours of fist-pumping rock anthems from Def Leppard and Journey. An always-visceral shuffleboard of poignancy and pleasure from Springsteen and his mighty band.

But the year also spotlighted the return of the pop star, with Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo steering sold-out arena runs as well as fashion trends. In country, Morgan Wallen continued his grip on stadium sellouts, while Zach Bryan demonstrated how his still-blossoming career is translating into escalating venue sizes.

And then there is the Sphere, the Las Vegas temple of musical magic that welcomed U2 in the first quarter of 2024 to cap its enthralling venue-opening residency that began in 2023 and also introduced astounding visual and sonic presentations from Phish, Dead & Company and the Eagles.

My concert year of more than two dozen shows incorporated all of the Sphere residents – including a January return to soak in the soul-gripping production from U2 one more time – as well as the final two Swift concerts in Vancouver.

But because both U2 and Swift resided atop my 2023 list of best concerts, they were excluded from this year’s ranking, as were any special events with multiple performances (e.g., the Gershwin Prize concert feting Elton John, Clive Davis’ Pre-Grammy Gala).

But of standalone shows in 2024, these are my 10 most memorable.

10. Duran Duran

Following last year’s massive Future Past tour, the venerable British New Wave pioneers had no reason to return to the road. But the band’s love of Halloween sparked a spate of East Coast dates in October that celebrated not only the timelessness of their still-delectable funk-ingrained pop (“Notorious,” “New Moon on Monday,” “Planet Earth”), but their penchant for the macabre. Though the finale at Madison Square Garden on Halloween featured Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor and Dom Brown swathed in ghoulish regalia, a Baltimore stop earlier that week at CFG Bank Arena featured a precursor that included Duran Duran’s throbbing dance track “Danse Macabre” and their devilish disco take on ELO’s “Evil Woman.”

9. Nicki Minaj

The rap queen returned to U.S. stages for the first time in eight years with a grandiose production that included tiers of staircases, towering video panels, a catwalk designed for strutting and an ocean of pink. Both playful and confident, Minaj traversed the stage at Capital One Arena in Washington D.C. with blinking doe eyes and snarls, as she spit rhymes through “Win Again” and “Barbie Dangerous.” This Pink Friday 2 tour reminded of Minaj’s spunk, as well as the reason she began her show with an un-ironic unspooling of “I’m the Best.”

8. Sting

Sting returning to a trio format raised a few eyebrows among those who remember the acrimony-fueled genius of The Police. But his touring configuration with longtime guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas once again invigorated the musician, finding him as frisky and engaged as ever as he and the guys romped through the elegant “Englishman in New York,” a rugged and raspy “So Lonely” and the glistening, intelligent pop of “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You.” At The Theater at MGM National Harbor this fall, Sting doled out sonic sophistication framed by his charming storytelling.

7. Billie Eilish

Given “Hit Me Hard and Soft” is the defining album of Eilish’s career thus far, it was no surprise that her complementary tour, a multimedia playground in the round that kicked off in the U.S. at Baltimore's CFG Bank Arena, also showcased her sustained rise. Though she had a football-field-sized stage to crisscross and was often difficult to see under a barrage of lasers and dark lighting, Eilish’s authenticity was never hidden. Whether whispering a constructed-on-the-spot “Wildflower,” swaggering through “Therefore I Am” or leaping in the air sans abandon during “Bad Guy,” Eilish effortlessly captivated.

6. Cyndi Lauper

Skepticism is always warranted when any artist proclaims a tour to be their last. But we believe Lauper when she tells us the Girls Just Want to Have Fun Farewell Tour really is goodbye to touring. And true to her word, she crafted a vibrant blowout packed with her decades of indelible hits (“She Bop,” “Time After Time,” “True Colors”), feisty album tracks (“Money Changes Everything”), early-band throwbacks (“I’m Gonna Be Strong”) and thoughtful ballads (“Sally’s Pigeons”). Lauper is not only a stylistic chameleon, but someone as comfortable in her Edith Bunker daffiness as she is a stalwart defender of women’s rights. Her originality is unmatched.

5. Eagles

It’s understandable that Vince Gill – a touring member of the esteemed California rockers since 2017 – said performing at the Sphere knocked him off his game a bit. Who would be able to sing and play as usual with a slowly rolling video of an eerie “Hotel California” enveloping the stage or skyscraper images stretching hundreds of feet to the peak of the venue during “In the City”? But the Eagles turned the inimitable Las Vegas dome into a stately playground anchored by pristine vocal work on well-worn favorites including “One of These Nights,” “Witchy Woman” and “Seven Bridges Road.” Don’t miss the opportunity to catch this one.

4. Olivia Rodrigo

All hail the young female rocker. Rodrigo’s triumphant Guts tour, which stormed through Capital One Arena this summer, was a study in fan adoration (some frequent concertgoers proclaimed her audiences as the loudest they’d ever heard) as well as sharp pop-rock songs and an admirable balance of sweetness and sass. Whether stomping her Doc Martens-clad feet during “Bad Idea Right?” or cruising around the arena perched on a crescent moon to croon “Logical” and “Enough for You,” Rodrigo held the sold-out crowd – primarily young and female – rapt. Her girlish enthusiasm was contagious as she rolled through the synth-heavy “Pretty Isn’t Pretty” and channeled her inner Alanis Morissette for “The Grudge.” And to think, all of this performing confidence and Rodrigo is really just getting started.

3. Billy Joel

Any Billy Joel fan fortunate to have experienced his Madison Square Garden residency during its decade-long run will expound in endless detail why those shows just felt different. Or maybe that’s just us with the nonstop elucidation. Regardless, Joel’s finale at the venerated New York arena this summer was a series of hellos and goodbyes. He isn’t ceasing touring – just check out his 2025 schedule – but the special touches at his July wrap up were notable deviations: The ever-eager Jimmy Fallon presented the banner to commemorate Joel’s 150^th show at MSG, unlikely pal Axl Rose joined Joel for covers of Wings’ “Live and Let Die” and AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and the Piano Man’s young daughters, Della Rose and Remy, gave dad an assist on “My Life.”  The nostalgia was inherent. The songs, timeless.

2. Missy Elliott

We’re still flummoxed how this was the first headlining tour for one of the most innovative names in hip-hop 25 years into her career. But Elliott clearly stocked up on ideas over the years and unleashed them in a 75-minute frenzy of lasers, spaceships, neon-speckled costumes and pyro, all amounting to a fever dream of awesomeness. While Elliott’s sharp rap skills were on point during “We Run This” and “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” it was her obvious joy at being onstage and finally getting to spout the clip-clop rhymes of “Ching-A-Ling” and the snaky “Work It” for her own crowd that left you watching with a perpetual smile. While Elliott enlisted longtime friends – and spirited partners - Busta Rhymes and Ciara for this Out of This World tour, there was no doubt who reigned supreme.

1. Jeff Lynne’s ELO

Another member of the This is the End club, Lynne, the shaggy-haired visionary who crafted some of the most immaculate fusions of prog-rock-pop-classical music with Electric Light Orchestra, wrapped his touring career with an auditory and visual feast. There were few moments as impressive on a stage this year as Lynne, a quiet leader hidden behind glasses and his guitar, steering the musical tour-de-force that is “Turn to Stone,” his ace band and backup singers flawlessly executing the tricky song. But the Over and Out tour was stocked with numerous moments of grandeur when it passed through Capital One Arena this fall. Lushness ruled “Don’t Bring Me Down,” happiness was threaded through “Do Ya” and the closing “Mr. Blue Sky” left the crowd grinning through an epic bop of optimism. All we can say is thanks, Jeff.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Best concerts of 2024 ranked: Olivia Rodrigo, Billy Joel, ELO