Greatest Cleveland concerts: No. 3 — David Bowie's debut

Flashback: Bowie's bond with Cleveland dates back to 1969 when local musician Brian Sands founded the first Bowie fan club in the U.S.

• The relationship strengthened when WMMS became one of the first radio stations in the U.S. to put Bowie's 1971 album "Hunky Dory" into heavy rotation.

The intrigue: That motivated Bowie's label, RCA Records, to tap Cleveland as the starting point for the singer's first American tour.

What they said: A headline previewing the show in the Cleveland Press read, "New rock singer: Bowie or Girl?" playing up the gender-bending nature of Ziggy Stardust.

• "Bowie seems to want to be accepted as he is, for what he is — talented, entertaining, sensitive, beautiful," writer John Sipple wrote. "If he succeeds, I think it will be progress for all of us."

What happened: Bowie did succeed, performing songs like "Space Oddity" and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide," as well as covers of The Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man" and Chuck Berry's "Around and Around."

The bottom line: The concert propelled Bowie as he headed to the West Coast for more breakthrough shows that would help establish him as a crossover star.

Go deeper: 15 greatest concerts in Cleveland history