One of Covent Garden’s most well-known live music venues, the Rock Garden (Not to be confused with the Rock Garden in Middlesbrough) opened in 1976 and hosted over 30,000 acts over the next 30 years before closing in 2008.

This basement venue hosted a wide variety of New Wave and indie bands including U2, XTC, Adam and The Ants, and Suede. A number of unsigned regional bands also performed here, hoping to attract the interest of record companies; The Smiths played their first London gig here in March 1983.

The Rock Garden had a busy diary, with gigs on most nights; however, by the 1990s it had become a nightclub called The Gardening Club. The building is today home to an Apple Store.