U2 racked up $389 million in gross ticket receipts, making Vertigo the second-most lucrative tour of all time, according to Billboard magazine. No.1 is the Rolling Stones' current tour, which by the end of 2006 had received $425 million.
Revenue from the Vertigo tour is funneled through companies that are mostly registered in Ireland and structured to minimize taxes. "U2 are arch-capitalists - arch-capitalists - but it looks as if they're not," says Jim Aiken, a music promoter who helped stage U2 concerts in Ireland during the 1980s and '90s.
