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Jason Aldean Destined to Be the Cool Grandfather

Jason Aldean may very well sell out all of his shows, sell out all of his concert merch, boost music downloads and take home a nice stash of money every night he's on tour. But it's the ultimate reward that he's thinking about now.

"We may (play stadiums) for two years, we may do it for 10 years, I don't know," Aldean told Billboard magazine recently, adding that someday, "my grandkids will look back at the pictures of us playing stadiums and go, 'Damn, my grandfather was actually pretty cool.'"

He even admitted when he first considered adding some stadiums to his summer tour schedule, it didn't seem like a reality.

"I thought they were just talking shit. We were all just drinking a bit too much one night, and that's something they came up with. Then I realized they were serious," Aldean recalled.

Once he successfully completed a couple of those stadium shows, he thought, "All right. We're onto something cool here."

The story covers the highlights of this year's stadium tours, including guys like Aldean but also the artists who aren't country. In fact, there's an interesting comparison between Billy Joel and Blake Shelton. This summer, when Joel played Chicago's Wrigley Field, he grossed $4.7 million from a 41,957-ticket sellout. The very next night, Shelton grossed $2.7 million from a 40,912-ticket sellout.

And while Billboard had originally declared 1994 the year of the stadium, the numbers behind those tours have not seen steady growth in the past 20 years. Especially around 2004, when concertgoers opted for the acoustics, comfort and intimacy of arenas and music-only sheds.

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