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When Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy sings, “I miss the innocence I’ve known, playing KISS covers beautiful and stoned,” on “Heavy Metal Drummer,” could he be channeling the spirit of Jeff Krulik’s 1986 short film Heavy Metal Parking Lot? The seminal 17-minute short, a fly-on-the-wall account of Judas Priest and Dokken fans partying outside the since-demolished Capital Centre in Landover, Md., captures the hubris and naïveté of 1980s suburban beer-swilling rebels. The party has been over for 25 years, but the glory (and Grade-A material) of these supposedly simpler times lives on. For his full-length documentary Heavy Metal Picnic, Krulik goes back to the well—or is “cauldron” more metal?—to uncover footage from the Full Moon Jamboree, a long-forgotten 1985 metal festival in bucolic Potomac, Md. The AFI Silver shows both films back-to-back—with “alumni” in attendance—making this the most metal way to spend a Friday night in downtown Silver Spring.
The films show at 9:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. $11.