George Strait concert breaks US attendance record held by rock ...

(NEXSTAR) – Country music star George Strait broke the record for the most-attended ticketed concert in the United States on Saturday night, playing for a crowd of 110,905 fans at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.

“I’m scared,” Strait joked from the stage, as seen in a video shared to social media.

“Never have we ever played in front of a crowd this big,” Strait continued. “I mean, we came across the Cowboy Stadium, few years back. We had like, 104 [thousand]. My gosh, 110,900!”

Strait, whose upcoming album “Cowboys and Dreamers” is due out later this year, is no stranger to the record books. He’s among the top-selling country artists of all time, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and he’s accumulated more gold- and platinum-certified albums than only a handful of artists in any genre.

Saturday night’s attendance record is another notch in Strait’s belt: The show at Kyle Field was most-attended ticketed concert in U.S. history (festivals excluded), as first reported by Billboard. Before Saturday, that record was held by the Grateful Dead, who performed for a crowd of 107,019 paying fans at Raceway Park in New Jersey on Sept. 3, 1977.

The Dead show in Jersey, however, was attended by at least two other non-ticketed customers, Billboard reported at the time: “Babies were born to two women attending the concert,” the publication wrote.

Despite the impressive turnouts for Strait and the Grateful Dead, neither artist comes close to breaking the record for the most-attended ticketed concert worldwide. That honor belongs to Italian artist Vasco Rossi, who performed for 225,173 people in Modena, Italy, on July 1, 2017, according to Pollstar, a live-music trade publication.

Artists including Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Frank Sinatra also each performed for significantly larger crowds than Strait, albeit at the same large venue in Brazil (Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, specifically).

Strait is expected to play several more stadium shows through the end of 2024. His upcoming album “Cowboys and Dreamers” will be released Sept. 6, 2024.