The Grateful Dead are celebrated as one of the greatest live acts of all time, known for treating each show as a unique, improvised event rather than a rehearsed run-through of songs. However, guitarist Bob Weir has revealed that the band's performance at Woodstock in 1969, arguably the most legendary gig of their career, was actually one of their worst, undermined by poor sound rather than the quality of their playing.

Weir explained that a sound engineer altered the setup partway through the performance, turning the band's characteristically unpredictable sets into something close to chaos and rendering the music barely listenable. Despite this, the muddy, rain-soaked crowd remained happy simply to be entertained, unaware anything had gone wrong. Weir noted that other acts built their reputations at Woodstock, while the Grateful Dead spent roughly twenty years trying to make up for what he called "probably the worst set we've ever performed."