Grateful Dead's 1970 Cleveland debut was nearly lost to history

Flashback: The group had released the "Workingman's Dead" album just four months earlier, embracing country and folk influences after years of psychedelic experimentation.

• Its landmark follow-up, "American Beauty," was weeks away, placing the Cleveland show between two of the band's most celebrated albums.

Zoom in: Despite forming five years earlier, the Dead had never performed in Cleveland.

• The concert was originally booked at the Allen Theatre but moved to Music Hall, where Jerry Garcia and company played for roughly three and a half hours.
• The setlist mixed emerging classics like "Truckin'" and "Casey Jones" with psychedelic epics "Dark Star" and "St. Stephen."

Fun fact: The show went over time, leading Music Hall management to turn on the house lights and order the Dead offstage.

• The band returned for an encore of "Uncle John's Band," finally wrapping up around 11:15pm.

The intrigue: For decades, collectors believed recordings of the performance were lost.

• That changed in 2012, when Jeff Linton, who recorded the show at age 16, released original cassette tapes that audio archivist Charlie Miller digitized and shared with fans.

The big picture: The show launched a long Cleveland relationship with the Dead, which performed more than 25 concerts across Northeast Ohio between the main band and side projects.