I'm getting to the point I think Led Zeppelin's disputed Lubbock date in August '69 should be reclassified as discredited.

For one thing, the venue listed, Civic Center Music Hall, is known not to have opened until 1970. So, Led Zeppelin couldn't have possibly played there on Aug. 13, 1969.

I have a friend Chris, who grew up in Lubbock fewer than 40 years ago, and who would be proud to go into the Led Zeppelin history books as the guy who turned up some kind of evidence, even anything anecdotal, that Led Zeppelin played in his home town. He took out a newspaper ad and posted on Craigslist within the past year asking the Lubbock community for their concert memories or anything stored in a scrapbook that would otherwise prove some Led Zeppelin concert took place there in 1969 or anytime. Much to his dismay, he turned up nothing.

He and I were discussing this yesterday, and he suggested one way of getting this to come to a close. He said I use my connections to ask Led Zeppelin's tour manager at the time, Richard Cole. So, I did.

Now, I can hear the question already: Why would I trust information received from a self-admitted drug addict based on memories that are older than the Woodstock Festival itself? The reason is simply because Richard remembers a lot of stuff from that time.

In fact, as has been said elsewhere, Richard has vivid memories of Robert Plant onstage in Dallas on Aug. 4, 1969, telling the audience that the rumors Led Zeppelin had been booked to play the Texas International Pop Festival at the end of the month were untrue, that the band would be back home in England by Aug. 31. So, Robert told the crowd, they shouldn't buy festival tickets thinking they would see Led Zeppelin because they would only be ripped off.

In truth, Led Zeppelin had been booked; Richard had booked them, and Robert just hadn't found out yet. The festival promoter happened to be there, hearing this, and he was understandably unhappy. It was up to Richard to grab Robert during the instrumental section of a song and say he had to go back out there and correct himself. Robert was unhappy to learn the band had been booked for another gig after all the previously booked tour dates because it meant getting home to his family in England later than planned.

Richard remembers all of this vividly more than 40 years after the fact. Part of that is because he was there. I can't even remember off hand whether Richard says this resulted in him being punched in the face by Robert, and I heard this story twice within the past year. Richard has a pretty good memory of 1969. Not so much of 1979. So, let's give Richard the benefit of the doubt here.

I asked him yesterday about the possibility that Led Zeppelin played in Lubbock, Texas, and he didn't even need to hear the specifics of maybe it was on the 13th between shows in Vegas and Austin. He immediately recognized Lubbock as the place with the Buddy Holly statue. He told me that when he was there with the London Quire Boys in 1990, they visited the statue and all took photos of themselves around it.

"Had Zeppelin played there any time, I would have had memories of visiting the statue or any other tribute relating to Buddy Holly," Richard said, "as he was such an icon to any young English band at that time and would have been a must to see for myself and Zeppelin had we played or visited Lubbock."

For me, this pretty much opens and closes the case that Led Zeppelin ever visited Lubbock, which is why I hereby recommend this date be reclassified as discredited instead of disputed.

Too bad for my friend Chris! To him, I say, Led Zeppelin is not known to have played in my home town either.

So, on Lubbock, where does the jury stand?

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Rock and roll,

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This show was changed from 'Disputed' to 'Discredited' for version 138