Name a band that was invited to play at Woodstock but declined

[red dog 1]

According to Artie Kornfield, John Lennon wanted to play "but was in Canada and having a hard time trying to get back into the U.S. at the hands of Richard Nixon"

[vanlassie]

1. The Doors.

[Casady1]

3. Hard to go

When you are drunk all the time.

[Mister Ed]

10. Didn't stop Janis Joplin. ; )

[Casady1]

15. Morrison Hotel

drunk from beginning to end.

[red dog 1]

20. Morrison disliked performing outdoors (no pun intended)

Drummer John Densmore was there.
(He can be seen at the side stage during Joe Cocker's set)

[secondwind]

2. I almost went to Woodstock... hubby was still in the service at Ft. Lee, and I was going to go with

my 5 month old, and a girlfriend... we were all packed up to go.........and then we heard on the radio (I lived in NYC) that all the roads were jam packed, it was a real mess, and you couldn't get off the highways, what a disaster...

Thank goodness we didn't go! We would have been stuck there, with the rain, and a 5 month-old, etc. yikes

[GPV]

4. My parents almost went with a tiny puppy, but in the end they

felt it wasn't a great plan.

[hay rick]

13. I'm another almost went.

I lived in New Jersey at the time. Friends contacted me and invited me to join them. I declined and hitchhiked down to Baltimore to visit another friend instead...

[elias7]

5. Joni Mitchell, I think

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. Joni Mitchell indeed was not there and regretted not going.

She was inspired to write the song by some of the coverage of the event.

[flotsam2]

18. Love it!

[red dog 1]

21. She wanted to go, but she was already booked to appear on The Dick Cavett Show,

Last edited Sun Oct 3, 2021, 05:40 PM - Edit history (1)

So her manager suggested that she should do The Dick Cavett Show instead.

[EYESORE 9001]

6. Grateful Dead, I think

[Mister Ed]

12. I think Grateful Dead played late on Saturday night, just before Creedence.

At least, that's my understanding from an interview with John Fogerty that I saw.

[Casady1]

14. I went

and I think they were right after Creedence. I was there almost the entire day Saturday. No one knew who Santana was. They were the 3rd band that day and blew the house down Country Joe and John Sebastian were next and Country Joe did the fish song. There was a break and the night started. Canned Heat then Mountain I think Creedence was next followed by the Dead( they were bad and I wouldn't listen to them for a year. Now I'm a deadhead). The Janis and it was 2 in the morning. I went back to my tent and missed the Who, Sly and the Airplane. for a long time the who and the Airplane were my favorite band. I still consider The Who, The Dead and the Allmans are the three best bands in concert. I have seen everyone(250 concerts).

[red dog 1]

30. You missed seeing Keith Townsend hit Abbie Hoffman over the head with his guitar,

when Hoffman came on the stage & tried to use the mic.

Possibly the only violent act of the entire weekend!

(except for the accidental death of one kid who was run over by the tractor pulling portable outhouses)

[Casady1]

31. Yes I missed it

Abbie deserved it.

[red dog 1]

32. I agree!

[jcgoldie]

16. The dead played and it was disastrous

They finally went on at 10:30 at night in the pouring rain and turned in one of their most forgettable performances in 30 years of playing spanning like 3000 shows.... here's Bobby's account:

It was raining toads when we played. The rain was part of our nightmare. The other part was our sound man, who decided that the ground situation on the stage was all wrong. It took him about two hours to change it, which held up the show. He finally got it set the way he wanted it, but every time I touched my instrument, I got a shock. The stage was wet, and the electricity was coming through me. I was conducting! Touching my guitar and the microphone was nearly fatal. There was a great big blue spark about the size of a baseball, and I got lifted off my feet and sent back eight or 10 feet to my amplifier.

~ Bob Weir, Rolling Stone interview

[red dog 1]

24. Jerry Garcia said "there were about 100 people on stage with us and everyone was scared that

it was gonna' collapse. On top of that, it was raining or wet, so that every time we touched our guitars, we'd get these electrical shocks..Blue sparks were flying out of our guitars."

[red dog 1]

29. Bob Weir was lucky he wasn't electrocuted.

[spooky3]

7. Linda Ronstadt nt

[red dog 1]

25. I'm not sure if she was even asked to perform.

So I can't say whether or not she declined to perform.

[spooky3]

26. I thought I read an interview where she described declining to perform. Nt

[red dog 1]

27. I could find no evidence of that

[Cartoonist]

8. Tommy James

I heard him say so in an interview.

[red dog 1]

22. He was in Hawaii and got a call from his secretary who told him:

"Listen, there's this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field."

Tommy's reaction later: "That's how it was put to me, so we passed."

[Blues Heron]

11. Bob Marley was invited to go by a friend to vend when he lived in Delaware

[jcgoldie]

17. the Rolling Stones

...

[red dog 1]

23. Mick Jagger had already signed to play the lead in "Ned Kelly" (in Australia) so they had to pass.

Last edited Sun Oct 3, 2021, 08:04 PM - Edit history (1)

And Keith Richards' girlfriend was expecting a baby, so he wanted to stay in the U.K. anyway.

[Niagara]

19. The Doors.

Robby Krieger has made statements that as a group they considered playing at Woodstock but ultimately turned down the invitation because they thought it would be a second class repeat of the Montery Pop Festival. No one knew at the time how massive Woodstock would be.


John Densmore actually was at Woodstock and was on the side stage during Joe Cocker's set.



Sidenote: The portrayal of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors movie isn't at all accurate. Tony Funches was Jim Morrison's bodyguard and says that Jim was an intelligent, generous and simple man.

[red dog 1]

28. I'll add one performer who turned it down...Roy Rogers, who was asked to end the festival with

a rendition of "Happy Trails To You"