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Topic: This Day In History... Return to archive
6th December 2006 12:14 PM
GotToRollMe
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20061206-altamont-rolling-stones-concert-woodstock-rock-n-roll-hells-angels-jefferson-airplane.shtml



Woodstock Goes to Hell
By David Rapp

On December 6, 1969, the Rolling Stones were going to perform a free concert at the Altamont Speedway racetrack near San Francisco. The Woodstock rock festival had taken place less than four months earlier, and the Stones’ show would feature the Woodstock alumni the Jefferson Airplane and Santana as opening acts. The show even shared a promoter with Woodstock, Michael Lang, and when asked by a reporter if it would be “Woodstock West,” he answered, “Well, it’s going to be San Francisco.” In fact, it would be a deadly disaster.

By the end of the evening, one man would be stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, two more people would be killed in an accidental hit-and-run, another would drown while in a drugged stupor, and some 850 concertgoers would be injured. What happened?

A fascinating account of that tragic day is the 1970 film Gimme Shelter, made by the documentary filmmakers David and Albert Maysles. They had been hired by the band to cover a recent show at New York’s Madison Square Garden and then continued on to the Altamont concert. But the Maysleses’ several cameramen—one of them a young George Lucas, who would go on to create Star Wars—did not document anything like a Woodstock-like feel-good atmosphere. Instead they captured escalating chaos and violence.

The Altamont Speedway was a last-minute venue choice, after legal and financial difficulties ruled out San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and the nearby Sears Point Raceway. The organizers had little time to work out logistical details, and they were woefully unprepared. The racetrack’s owner, Dick Carter, was told to expect about 50,000 attendees, but six times that number showed up. The racetrack also supplied only 400 unarmed security guards. “We put in 1,000 portable toilets, 2,000 garbage cans, rented 16 helicopters,” Carter said years later, “but all day long, they kept coming, like ants over a hill.” He was financially ruined by the damage the fans did to his racetrack.

Many of the kids who attended the show took psychedelic drugs and drank heavily. Also drinking were members from local chapters of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, who had an area near the stage all to themselves. Some of the Angels were asked to provide extra security by the Stones’ road manager.

Very early in the day, the Angels began getting into violent scuffles with concertgoers attempting to climb onstage. Some of the Angels struck fans with pool cues, and others threw heavy full cans of beer into the crowd. During the Jefferson Airplane’s set, a fight involving Angels actually broke out onstage, and the group’s lead singer, Marty Balin, was knocked unconscious. “People get weird,” the bandmember Grace Slick said to the audience, “and you need people like the Angels to keep people in line. But the Angels also—you don’t bust people in the head for nothing.” The Grateful Dead, scheduled to play later, decided to beg off because of the violence.

By the time the Rolling Stones came on that evening, the crowd was in a state of near anarchy. When the group launched into the song “Sympathy for the Devil,” they had to stop playing as Hells Angels and fans clashed once again near the front of the stage. “Everybody just cool out,” said Mick Jagger from the stage. After the Stones managed to get through that song, Jagger attempted again to calm things down. “Why are we fighting?” he said repeatedly. “Everybody, Hells Angels, everybody—let’s just keep ourselves together.”

During another song, “Under My Thumb,” a second fight erupted. This time it involved an 18-year-old black man, Meredith Hunter, who, while high on amphetamine, brandished a gun near the stage. He was jumped by several Hells Angels and stabbed, five times, to death. The Gimme Shelter documentary crew caught the shocking scene on film. Amazingly, after Hunter’s body was removed, the Stones continued playing.

Hunter wouldn’t be the only one killed at Altamont that day. Another man drowned in a canal while high on LSD, and two more concertgoers were killed by a car in a hit-and-run accident. When the thousands of fans finally left, the whole place was a ruin.

Alan David Passaro, one of the Hells Angels, was tried for Hunter’s death and found not guilty, on grounds that he had acted in self-defense. (He himself would himself drown in 1985.) Gimme Shelter was released in 1970, and since then the Rolling Stones have done their best to leave Altamont behind them. In 1999 a barbecue peddler at the racetrack, still operating, called the Stones’ booking agent to try to bring the group back for a thirtieth-anniversary concert. A spokeswoman for the booking agent later said to a reporter: “I told him to lose our number.”

The Rolling Stones aren’t the only ones who would rather forget Altamont. When accounts of the disaster hit the news back in 1969, Americans in the mainstream and in the counterculture alike were horrified. Many today still view the event as a deeply symbolic one. It was the day that ended the mirage of a culture of peace and love in the 1960s. The brief moment of flower power and hippie idealism was fast receding.

6th December 2006 12:16 PM
Fiji Joe cease and desist with the unauthorized use of my likeness
6th December 2006 12:32 PM
SweetVirginia
quote:
Fiji Joe wrote:
cease and desist with the unauthorized use of my likeness



LOL

6th December 2006 12:42 PM
GotToRollMe LOL...looks like you've been workin' out, Feej! Keep power-liftin' those Twinkies!
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