10 Biggest Hard Rock & Metal Gigs Of All Time

Generations of rock musicians have revelled in bringing their songs to life in the studio. As opposed to being road dogs, countless acts have put the love and care into their songs to make them masterpieces of the recorded medium. On the other hand, if you want to get a glimpse as to how powerful hard rock can get, one need look only to the live stage.

Instead of the studio trickery, these gigs have provided uncut hours of glorious rock music that seemed to shake the music world. These are often viewed as once in a lifetime gigs for these artists, where there seems to be an unending sea of people as far as the eye can see. Rather than being a bunch of rowdy fans, the audience seems to gel into a living breathing entity as they feed off the energy of the great musical beasts in front of them.

These events also offer a bit of validation for fans of heavy music around the world. Even if these bands' songs aren't played on the radio 24/7, the amount of people they can inspire proved that hard rock and metal are far from niche and are able to touch any strip of music lover.

At the start of the new millennium, it felt like Rush was done for all intents and purposes. After Neil Peart lost his daughter and wife within just a few months, the band was on sabbatical and unsure if they would ever return to form. Though Vapor Trails proved that they had their chops in the studio, the band reached their biggest possible audience once they hit Rio.

With a tours' worth of gigs already under their belt at this point, this power trio feel like they're a new band out to prove why they were such a big deal back in the '70s and '80s. From the first hit on the set opener "One Little Victory," the polyrhythmic chops are in full force, as Peart annihilates his kit and Alex Lifeson delivers the one of the meatiest riffs the band have ever thought up.

Even the fan favorites from the set like "YYZ" have so much energy to them that the crowd ends up singing along to a track that HAS NO WORDS. Things may have seemed bleak a few years prior, but Rush's return to their prog rock throne was something that Rio wouldn't soon forget.