On the South Bank. (5)

Before a concert, Level 3 terrace, Royal Festival Hall. Photo © David Secombe 1988.

In the years since The Royal Festival Hall opened in 1951, people have sat in this foyer waiting to hear:

Claudio Abbado, Laurie Anderson, Louis Armstrong, Burt Bacharach, Dame Janet Baker, Sir John Barbirolli, Daniel Barenboim, Count Basie, The Bee Gees, Luciano Berio, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Sir Adrian Boult, David Bowie, Alfred Brendel, John Cale, Maria Callas, Ornette Coleman, Elvis Costello, Sir Colin Davis, Miles Davis, Neil Diamond, Christophe von Dohnanyi, Nick Drake, Jacqueline Du Pre, Bob Dylan, Electric Prunes, Duke Ellington, Fairport Convention, Marianne Faithfull, The Fall, Ella Fitzgerald, John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, Carlo Maria Giulini, Goldfrapp, Benny Goodman, Bernard Haitink, Herbie Hancock, Tony Hancock, Jimi Hendrix, Vladimir Horowitz, Keith Jarrett, Jethro Tull, Elton John, Tom Jones, Herbert von Karajan, Rudolf Kempe, B.B. King, Carlos Kleiber, Otto Klemperer,  Radu Lupu, Humphrey Lyttleton, Lorin Maazel, Wayne Marshall, Steve Martin, John Martyn, Johnny Mathis, John McLaughlin, George Melly, Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonius Monk, Pierre Monteux, Motorhead, Riccardo Muti, Evgeny Mvravinsky, Randy Newman, New York Dolls, The Nice, Jessye Norman, Murray Perahia, Pere Ubu, Oscar Peterson, Pink Floyd, Maurizio Pollini, Lucia Popp, Simon Rattle, Lou Reed, Buddy Rich, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Artur Rubinstein, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Saint Etienne, Andras Schiff, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Ronnie Scott, George Shearing, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Soft Machine, Georg Solti, Patti Smith, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Leopold Stokowski, Igor Stravinsky, Jack Teagarden, Klaus Tennstedt, T-Rex, Richard Thompson, Arturo Toscanini, Stan Tracey, Tricky, McCoy Tyner, William Walton, Brian Wilson, Yes, Frank Zappa, Krystian Zimmerman . . . amongst others.

This entry is the 200th post on The London Column. Thanks to all our contributors and readers … D.S., K.E.B.