The Kings of Leon played the biggest-grossing San Diego concert of 2005...only because they opened for U2 at the Sports Arena. According to Pollstar magazine, the March 30 sell-out brought in $2.9 million, the 86th biggest one-night take of 2005. The show was the only S.D. concert that appeared on the magazine's list of top 200 concerts of the year.

The biggest U.S. concert, according to Pollstar, was the Bonnaroo Music Festival (Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band) in Manchester, Tennessee. The June 12 show took in $13.3 million; 76,000 fans paid at least $146 per ticket.

This year, no S.D. artist made the top-100 list of biggest-grossing concert tours. However, Carlsbad skater/tour organizer Tony Hawk and his Boom Boom Huckjam tour was the 146th biggest-grossing tour of 2005; the tour took in $3.5 million.

On Pollstar's list of the most successful club venues (the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. rated number 1), 7 of the 10 House of Blues nightclubs were in the top 15; HoB San Diego was the least successful, coming in at number 43. Soma was the only other S.D. club to make the top-100 list, at 66.

Pollstar reported that the most successful local music venue was Coors Amphitheatre. In 2004, the Chula Vista concert site sold 173,000 tickets; last year, 241,000. The venue ranked as the 15th most successful large venue in America.