Grand Venue: Royal Albert Hall

Exactly as Prince Albert had intended. After the 1851 World Fair, the Prince Consort of Queen Victoria envisioned a permanent building where the people could enjoy art and science and be surrounded by the best schools and museums. Unfortunately Prince Albert didn’t live to see the result as he died in 1861, 6 years before the construction of the concert hall was started. Today, the concert hall is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. The Royal Albert Hall holds a special place in the hearts of most Londoners and the many artists who have performed here.

Since its inauguration in 1871, the Royal Albert Hall has carefully built an impeccable reputation. The greatest artists in the world have performed here: conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan; orchestras like the Dutch Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Wiener Philharmoniker; and also pop acts such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and more recently Coldplay and Stereophonics. The Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast from the concert hall in 1968, the first European live broadcast in colour. And since 1941, the venue has hosted the annual Proms, the largest classical music festival in the world.

Of all the legendary concerts that have taken place here, Londoners will vividly remember the one by Bob Dylan. In 1965, Dylan performs for the first time at the Royal Albert Hall. He is 23 years old and has just released his 5th studio album. He is hugely popular and shines in the London spotlights. A year later he returns, but things go very differently. The concert consists of 2 parts: before the break an acoustic set, as the audience expects from him, followed by an electronic set. The second part doesn’t go over well with Dylan’s British fans. People boo him and a renegade fan calls the singer “Judas!”. Another fan yells out: “I will never listen to you again!”

“I don’t believe you, you’re a liar,” is Dylan’s reply and he orders his band to play Like A Rolling Stone extra loud. Bob Dylan Live 1966 - The Royal Albert Hall Concert became his most famous bootleg album. Decades later it turned out that the illegal recording hadn’t been made in London but in Manchester. Nevertheless, the Judas incident granted the Royal Albert Hall a mythical status as ‘the Holy Grail of Rock & Roll’. It would take 47 years before Dylan returned to the stage, in 2013, to a unanimously positive response. In October 2015 he will play a tribute to Frank Sinatra – and all 5 concerts sold out fast.