One of Covent Garden’s most well-known live music venues, the Rock Garden 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.