Led Zeppelin performed a show for fewer than 60 people on Jan. 20, 1969, at a tiny youth center in Maryland. Or, maybe and more likely … they didn’t.
A hardcore group of “attendees” or believers have stuck to this story for decades now, but Led Zeppelin’s official site lists the show – reportedly held in Wheaton, a town of around 50,000 residents near Washington, D.C. – only as an “unconfirmed rumour.” The site notes that road manager Richard Cole has no memory of it either.
At the same time, no one has ever been able to produce a photograph, contract, ticket stub, gig poster or any other physical evidence to prove that Led Zeppelin did, in fact, perform there.
Still, the local legend has endured. That inspired director Jeff Krulik – co-creator of the immortal Heavy Metal Parking Lot – to construct the investigative documentary Led Zeppelin Played Here, which was presented in unfinished form at various film festivals.
Krulik invited everyone who said they had been at the Zeppelin show to a reunion in 2009. Funnily enough, according to a Washington Post report, twice as many people showed up for this event as had supposedly attended the original concert.
Of those, only about a half-dozen claimed to have seen the show, and the only evidence presented was a pair of battered sneakers apparently worn that night. Still, the true believers were undaunted by the lack of evidence.
“They were definitely here,” alleged attendee Anne Marie Pemberton told the Post. “[Jimmy] Page was over here. John Paul Jones was over there. [Robert] Plant, the showman, was right here. And right behind was John Bonham with his hellacious drum set.”
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
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