As legendary ’60s rock festivals go, the Laurel Pop Festival doesn’t quite reverberate the same way Woodstock, the Monterey Pop Festival, or the Newport Pop Festival does. But it should. The lineup was incredible.

Led Zeppelin’s website—the heavy English rockers headlined—dedicates an entire page to the “lost in the smoky haze of 1960s history” festival.

Blues guitar great Buddy Guy opened the wet and wild two-day event—which happened 50 years ago this evening—at the Laurel Race Track. Guy was followed by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, Al Kooper, the former lead singer of Blood, Sweat and Tears, and then . . . Jethro Tull, Johnny Winter (who would also perform a month later at Woodstock), and finally Led Zeppelin, who had their second album coming out later that year.

With more 10,000 on hand the second night—reserved seats went between $5.75 and $6.75—things got a little crazy. Lightning and thunderstorms filled the sky before The Guess Who kicked off round two of the concert two hours later than scheduled. By the time Baltimore-born Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, the third band on the bill, wrapped up—it was past 1 a.m.—at which point cold and damp fans began building a bonfire with their wooden folding chairs.

The Jeff Beck Group, including Rod Stewart and future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, nonetheless managed to get in abbreviated set. So did Sly and the Family Stone (who also would play Woodstock), but then a policeman took the stage when they were done and waved everybody home before the final act Savoy Brown, another British blues rock band, could get started.

The late Bethesda-raised musician Tommy Keene, who would go on to some critical acclaim in the 1980s, attended the concert as an enthralled middle-schooler with his two brothers—and father on pick-up duty.

“The crowd itself was something we weren’t prepared for,” Keene later told Magnet magazine. “This was the summer of Woodstock, and various long-haired freaks and topless chicks were running around crazed and stoned out of their minds. We must have looked ridiculous—three kids, age 10, 11, and 13, with our little outfits. I distinctly remember some hippie dude coming up to me and offering me a hit of acid. Er, no thanks, man. Zeppelin came on about 1 a.m., and we were having such a great time we hadn’t thought about Dad or anything else, although if he had wanted to find us, especially after we moved seats, he was out of luck—there had to have been more than 10,000 people there.”

In hindsight, the entire venture—some of the greatest acts in rock history joining forces for two nights of cheap thrills at the Laurel Race Track—seems impossible to imagine. But not so at the time, says Maryland filmmaker Jeff Krulik, whose documentaries include the cult classics Heavy Metal Parking Lot (chronicling a 1986 Judas Priest show at the Capital Centre) and Led Zeppelin Played Here (the story of a mythical Zeppelin performance at a Wheaton Rec Center).

“There was precedent,” Krulik says, noting Baltimore music promoters Elzie Street and James Scott. Together, they had promoted the successful Laurel Jazz Festival since 1967, and teamed up with national promoter George Wein, who directed the Newport Jazz Festival, to promote the Laurel Pop Festival. “It was new for [the promoters] in that it was rock, not jazz, but rock festivals were happening all over the place.”

“Of course,” Krulik adds, “everything in 1969 was overshadowed by Woodstock. It is kind of cool, though, that the Laurel Race Track is still around.”

Music writers from The Baltimore Sun and Washington Star, who covered the concert, both said Johnny Winter stole the show the first night, but largely panned Zeppelin. Same with a young writer from The Washington Post, who became famous a couple of years later for breaking the scandal that was Richard Nixon’s presidency.

“”I really missed it on Led Zeppelin,” Carl Bernstein said in a 2001 interview (“Stairway to Watergate”) with the Washington City Paper’s Dave McKenna. “I get Led Zeppelin now. I love them. But, boy, did I not get that band then. I’m ashamed. But what can I say? You get to be wrong once in a while.”

This evening, the North Laurel Community Center, in conjunction with the Laurel History Boys, hosts a Laurel Pop Festival 50th anniversary celebration from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is $5 and includes a screening of Krulik’s documentary, Led Zeppelin Played Here.

“Hopefully, some people who were there 50 years ago will show up and share some stories,” Krulik said.

Want more? Check the bootleg of The Guess Who’s set from the show.

Could Led Zeppelin possibly have played the Wheaton Youth Center gym on their first U.S. tour on January 20, 1969—the night of Richard Nixon’s inauguration? The short answer: maybe.

Jeff Krulik, a former Discovery Channel producer and independent film director responsible for the cult classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot, brings his more recent documentary Led Zeppelin Played Here to the Parkway Theatre this Saturday, February 16, on the 50th anniversary of legendary band’s well-documented show a few weeks later at the Baltimore Civic Center.

We asked Krulik, 57, a Bowie-native with Baltimore roots, a few questions about his career and his documentary, which earned significant play on the festival circuit after its 2011 release. Krulik will be on hand Saturday for a Q&A after the 4 p.m. screening.

So, first, the Led Zeppelin Played Here screening this weekend is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the band’s first appearance in Baltimore.
They played the Civic Center several times, 1970, 1972, 1973, but the first time was Feb. 16, 1969 when they opened for Vanilla Fudge. I’m hoping some people who were at that show come out Saturday.

We’ve got to ask about Heavy Metal Parking Lot, which for those who have not seen it (and everyone should), is a documentary short shot in the parking outside the old Capital Centre in Landover before a 1986 Judas Priest concert. What’s the reaction been like over the years from people who’ve seen it? What do fans say to you?
There are always people who say, ‘I was there.’ But they don’t necessarily mean that particular concert. They usually mean, they hung out in the Capital Centre parking lot for one show or another. Or some place similar during that period. ‘That was me’ kind of thing. Or ‘I knew those people.’ I also get ‘What happened to all those people?’ They all turned okay (laughs.) It’s kind of a cultural anthropology.

In Led Zeppelin Played Here, Baltimore also makes an appearance. You visit with the Globe Posters founders and, it turns out, one the world’s largest collections of Led Zep memorabilia is held by a local guy.
My mom is from South Baltimore and I still have family in Baltimore. I grew up going to Cross Street Market and Federal Hill.

We don’t want to give too much away, but essentially the mystery comes down to the fact there is no hard evidence Zeppelin played the Wheaton Youth Center gym. No surviving tickets, ads, concert posters, fliers, etc. Except, a handful of people claim it happened and say they were there—and that, surprisingly, the Wheaton Youth Center was booking some big, upcoming bands back in the day.
Nils Lofgren, Dr. John, Rare Earth, Rod Stewart and Faces—nobody questions them. They just question Led Zeppelin.

The premise is no one knew Led Zeppelin. Their album had just been released eight days before in the U.K. and only 40-50 people turned out.
We’ve reached out to people in the Led Zeppelin circle, but of course it would just be a blip to them. And we’ve never heard back. There’s just no conclusive evidence, which would be unheard of today, and that’s also what makes the whole thing interesting. Although I have learned more since and I’ll share some of that Saturday. It used to be listed on ledzeppelin.com as a date and then after our film it was changed to ‘unconfirmed rumour.’ Really kind of funny.

You believe the show happened.
Yes.

Last question—what was your first concert?
Bad Company. 1977 at the Capital Centre. Some of the girls in homeroom went to see Led Zeppelin two weeks before, but they didn’t ask me to go.