By Latara Appleby

A line was already forming outside when the employees of CD Central arrived to work at 9 a.m. Saturday. By the time the store opened for business at 10 a.m., a line of about 50 people extended down South Limestone.

This was not an ordinary Saturday. The store took part in a nationwide event known as Record Store Day, which started four years ago.

Crowds filled the store, browsing through vinyl and listening to live bands from the Lexington area. For some people, it was their first Record Store Day experience.

Cristina Brody, an entomology graduate student, had never been before and viewed it as an incentive to get her turntable hooked up.

“It’s fun to just look around, there is a lot to see here,” Brody said.

While Brody inherited vinyl records from her father, the Radiohead album she purchased on Saturday was the first vinyl she had ever bought herself.

It was also the first Record Store Day that Caitlin Reed, an art senior, had come to, but she is a frequent visitor of CD Central.

“I try to buy local,” Reed said. “I love this place. They have a lot more stuff than anyone else.”

Reed was part of the line of people that came to meet My Morning Jacket, a band native to Louisville, Ky.

“I love that they are local and have gotten big,” she said. “They are a great live show with a lot of energy.”

Fans had the opportunity to buy the band’s new single, “Circuital,” on vinyl and have it signed.

“They made it specifically for us,” CD Central owner Steve Baron said. “The record label rushed it into production … they basically made it for us to tie into this appearance.”

Six hundred copies were made, with half going to ear X-tacy in Louisville and half to CD Central.

“That’s it for the whole country,” Baron said. “We sold almost 300 copies today, which is probably the most of any one thing we have ever sold in the history of this store.”

CD Central opened in 1995 and moved to its current location in 1999. The store has participated in Record Store Day every year since it began.

“Last year was our biggest ever,” Baron said. “This year surpassed that.”

As of late Saturday afternoon Baron estimated that roughly 500 people had visited the store that day.

“It’s just a really cool thing because you hear so much negative stuff about record stores,” Baron said. “It’s true that a lot of record stores have gone out of business and that business isn’t what it used to be, but it still really fills a niche in the community.

“When you have a store full of people, it’s really exciting because it reinforces that record stores are still relevant; they still have a place.”