13 of the most famous Classic Rock video locations

7 February 2025, 19:00

Radio X gets out the map and takes a look at where some of the most iconic promo films in history were shot: featuring Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Queen and more...

1. Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues

   

   Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues (Official HD Video)

   • Single release date: 23rd April 1965 (UK)
   • Promo filmed shot at: Savoy Steps, London WC2R 0DA

   Shot on Saturday 8th May 1965, before Dylan's pair of shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, this classic sequence opened the documentary film Don't Look Back and has been mimicked, imitated and spoofed many times in the intervening six decades.

   The clip was shot in a tiny alleyway behind London's five star Savoy Hotel on The Strand, where Dylan was staying at the time. To recreate the moment, stand on the corner of Savoy Hill and Savoy Steps and look North towards Savoy Street. The brick wall immediately behind Dylan is actually a buttress at the rear of the King's Chapel of the Savoy, built in the 1500s.

   

2. The Beatles - Paperback Writer

   

   The Beatles - Paperback Writer

   • Single release date: 10th June 1966
   • Promo filmed at: Chiswick House and Gardens, Burlington Ln, Chiswick, London W4 2RP

   The Fab Four were much in demand in the mid 1960s, so they were early adopters of the promotional film. They spent a day in November 1965 at Twickenham studios, creating a number of clips for their then-current single We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper, plus a handful of other tracks to allow TV stations across the world the chance to screen their own Beatles footage. The follow-up single Paperback Writer and its b-side Rain received the same treatment, with a number of performances of both tracks at Abbey Road Studios captured on video.

   

   This was accompanied by a pair of promos shot on 35mm colour film, the location being the ornate gardens at Chiswick House in West London. The Fabs were pictured in among the trees and statues, then the camera followed them making their way through the fabulous glasshouse. The gardens date back to the 1730s and were sold to Middlesex Council in 1929. A major restoration project was completed in 2010.

   

3. The Who - The Kids Are Alright

   

   The Who - The Kids Are Alright

   • Single release date: 12th August 1966
   • Promo filmed at: Hyde Park, London, W2 2UH

   A fairly sedate Who promo for this early single from the Mod legends. The quartet of Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon set up to play by the Eastern end of the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

   

4. The Kinks - Dead End Street

   

   The Kinks - Dead End Street (Official Music Video)

   • Single release date: 18th November 1966
   • Promo filmed at: Little Green Street, Kentish Town, London, NW5

   Ray Davies' dour tale of poverty was accompanied by a tongue in cheek promo film, which saw the band members dressed as undertakers - and various other characters. The "dead end street" used for the clip was actually Little Green Street off Highgate Road in Kentish Town.

   At the start of the promo, the band are pictured walking under a bridge that still carries the old North London Line between Gospel Oak and Hampstead Heath. At the climax, the "dead body" (a Kinks roadie) jumps out of the coffin the quartet are carrying and hares off back through the pedestrian tunnel. The BBC thought the premise was a little too ghoulish and declined to screen the film.

   

5. The Jam - News Of The World

   

   The Jam - News Of The World (1978) (HD 60fps)

   • Single release date: 24th February 1978
   • Video filmed at: Battersea Power Station, Nine Elms, London SW11 8DD

   Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler set up their kit by the imposing edifice of Battersea Power Station on the South Bank of the River Thames, just over a year after Pink Floyd put the building in the rock history books with the cover of their album Animals.

   The Jam were probably thinking of The Who's Quadrophenia, however; the elaborate booklet that came with that 1973 album featured a grainy black and white photo of the Jimmy The Mod driving his scooter down a road with the four smoking chimneys of the power station pictured in the distance behind him.

   • Read more: The Top 10 most famous Classic Rock album cover locations

   

   Battersea in fact combined two separate stations: A station was completed in 1935 and was decommissioned on 17th March 1975, while station B was finished in 1955 and stopped providing power on 31st October 1983, three years after the structure was given Grade II listed status.

   The building remained empty for the best part of 30 years, with many plans to renovate the area proving to be unsuccessful - at various points it was proposed that the shell be turned into a theme park, offices or even a new stadium for Chelsea FC. In the late 90s, the power station even played host to a number of live shows, including gigs by Morrissey, Paul Weller, Placebo and The Prodigy.

   

   Battersea Power Station was put up for sale on the open market in 2012 and was bought by a Malaysian investment conglomorate. After a decade of development, the site opened to the public on 14th October 2022, complete with new tube station on the Northern Line. The structure now holds designer shops and restaurants, over 250 aparments, a roof garden and a viewing platform in one of the former chimneys.

6. Judas Priest - Breaking The Law

   

   Judas Priest - Breaking The Law (Official Music Video)

   • Single release date: 30th May 1980
   • Video filmed at: 11-13 Frith St, London W1D 4RB and other locations in Soho

   Rob Halford and co presented a supreme example of an "acting out the words" promotional video with this metal classic. It was directed by Julien Temple, who had premiered his Sex Pistols movie The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle the same month that this clip started to do the rounds.

   The film kicks off with band members Glenn Tipton and KK Downing sat on a bench in Soho Square, with the camera facing North towards Oxford Street. The action then shifts to a bank situated on the corner of Frith Street and Bateman Street, a couple of blocks away, where the pair are joined by frontman Halford, who's just driven up in an open-top car. The power of Priest's rock overcomes the bank's staff and the band make good their escape back down the motorway.

   

   The bank, which looks to have closed down by the time this was filmed, sits on the corner opposite to the Dog And Duck pub (which has been frequented by such diverse personalities as George Orwell and Madonna), and is now a Chotto Matte Japanese restaurant.

   

7. David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes

   

   David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes

   • Single release date: 1st August 1980
   • Video filmed at: Pett Level Beach, East Sussex

   David Mallett managed to make the most expensive music video ever made up to that point when this masterpiece was unveiled in the summer of 1980. And it worked - the perplexing images kept the song at Number 1 for two weeks. Devised by Bowie and Mallett, the clip drew heavily on a piece the pair had recorded for a Kenny Everett's TV special broadcast on New Year's Eve 1979, when the musician had reworked his classic song Space Oddity.

   

   The exteriors were shot at Pett Level beach near Hastings, a location Mallett had used before on Everett's show, for a sequence of Justin Hayward performing the War Of The Worlds song Forever Autumn.

   

   JUSTIN HAYWARD - FOREVER AUTUMN - "The Kenny Everett Video Show", 1978

8. Queen - Bicycle Race

   

   Queen - Bicycle Race Official Video

   • Single release date: 13th October 1978
   • Video filmed at: Wimbledon Stadium, Plough Ln, London SW19 8DN

   Freddie Mercury's ode to the joys of cycling was backed with Brian May's risqué tune Fat Bottomed Girls, so the band thought it would be a terrific wheeze if they made a video featuring 65 nude models cycling around Wimbeldon Stadium. To avoid the TV pop shows banning the film, director Denis de Vallance employed some basic video effects to cover up the nakedness. Only in the 70s.

   

9. Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmastime

   

   Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmastime

   • Single release date: 16th November 1979
   • Video filmed at: Fountain Inn, Ashurst, Steyning BN44 3AP

   Macca's seasonal favourite was accompanied by a murky clip of the former Beatle, wife Linda and the rest of the final Wings line-up making merry at the Fountain Inn, located in the Horsham district of West Sussex. If you're a Super McCartney fan, you can get married there, or just enjoy the "Best Countryside Pub for Food in Sussex".

   

10. The Rolling Stones - Waitig On A Friend

    

    The Rolling Stones - Waiting On A Friend - OFFICIAL PROMO

    • Single release date: 27th November 1981
    • Video filmed at: 96/98 St Mark's Place, New York, NY 10009

    The New York apartment block where Mick Jagger patiently waits for his mate Keith Richards to turn up was already famous by the time the Stones came along - it appears on the cover of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album.

    

    Leaving reggae legend Peter Tosh (in a cameo role) behind on the steps, the Glimmer Twins head to St Mark's Bar and Grill - which is now Stromboli Pizza - and find the rest of the Stones.

    

11. The Stranglers - Golden Brown

    

    Golden Brown - The Stranglers

    • Single release date: 11th January 1982
    • Video filmed at: Leighton House Museum, 12 Holland Park Rd, London W14 8LZ

    The British punks had the biggest hit of their career when their elegant waltz Golden Brown made it to Number 2 in the UK charts, accompanied by this intriguing video that sees the band embark on a quest to unearth some ancient Egyptian treasure.

    Scenes of Hugh Cornwell and the band in a palatial room evoking images of Cairo were actually shot in Holland Park, just off Kensington High Street and a stone's throw from both the Design Museum and Olympia. Director Lindsey Clennell employed Leighton House Museum's "Arab Hall", an ornate wing of the building that was completed by painter Federic Leighton and his architect George Aitchison in 1877.

    Spandau Ballet used the same location for similarly exotic purposes in the video for their single Gold, released the following year.

    

12. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart

    • Single release date: 11th February 1983
    • Video filmed at: Holloway Sanitorium, Virginia Water, Surrey
    

    Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart (Turn Around) (Official Video)

    Russell Mulcahy shot the video for the Welsh singer's biggest hit at Holloway Sanatorium, a former Victorian mental hospital in Virginia Water, 20 miles South West of London. The facility closed in December 1980 and the huge expanse of the empty building was quickly pressed into use for film and music video shoots.

    Ace director Mike Mansfield shot The Cure's Charlotte Sometimes clip there and followed it up with Adam Ant's Number 1 hit, Goody Two Shoes. In the video for Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Bonnie makes good use of the ornate staircase and the vast Gothic architecture of the exercise hall.

    

    After years of ambitious and abandoned plans, the Grade I listed site was turned into a gated housing development called Virginia Park - a four bedroomed apartment will currently set you back a cool £1 million.

    

13. Queen - A Kind Of Magic

    

    Queen - A Kind of Magic (Official Video Remastered)

    • Single release date: 17th March 1986
    • Video filmed at: Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Ave, London WC2N 5DE

    First opened in 1882 and refurbished in 1907, the Playhouse sits by Charing Cross and Embankment stations on the North side of the Thames in Central London. The building was owned by the BBC from 1951 and played host to recordings of radio series like The Goon Show and Hancock's Half Hour, land later put on concerts by Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, which were recorded for John Peel's Top Gear programme.

    When the Beeb checked out in 1976, the theatre was left derelict, which is why Queen used the empty facility to shoot the video for their single A Kind Of Magic some ten years later. Thankfully, the Playhouse was saved and re-opened to new audiences in October 1987; it's now rebranded temporarily as the "Kit Kat Club" while it plays host to a revival of the musical Cabaret.