I was watching this show on VH1 about the most shocking moments in rock and roll, and number 5 or something was Altamont, it was a free concert that the rolling stones gave in california, they said it was really violent and people died and stuff, they also said it sort of ended the flower child movement...i don't know...was anyone from here actually there? could you describe it?
I read a lot about Altamont. I wasn't there (hah...I wasn't even born yet) but here's what I've heard: Someone (a black concert-goer) was stabbed by one of the Hell's Angels & apparently, Mick Jagger witnessed it from the stage. Supposedly, the black guy was upset that the Stones turned black music into white rock & roll. These aren't exactly my words. I heard it from my burn-out uncle. I also watched that show on VH1. That Woodstock '99 was absolutely disgusting. I can't believe anyone would ruin the name of Woodstock like those concert-goers.
yeah, woodstock 99 didn't even have peaceful bands....fucking hell, they had kidrock for christ's sake
Yeah, what a disgrce. Those fools. At least the bands that performed at Woodstock had a significant impact on rock music. hahaa...where will Kid Rock be in 20 or 30 years? In an STD clinic?
Check out the movie 'Gimme Shelter'. They document the whole concert at Altamont. The person who was stabbed by the Hell's Angels did have a gun and apparently said he was going to kill Mick because his girlfriend liked him. You can see him pull the gun just before the Hell's Angels stabbed and killed him. I agree that Woodstock 99 was a disgrace. There was also some rioting at the end of it. They should have called it Altamont 99.
My dad (huge crazy stones nut insted of a hippie...lol) has one of the many books on the stones (I belive this on is the one Bill wrote about a year ago) and it has like four pages for the concert.
I attended the concert at Altamont in '69, and Yes, it got violent after the Stones took the stage. Up until then it was OK, but a couple of plainclothes narcs tried to arrest a dude for smoking pot, and about 20,000 people converged around them and chanted and finally the narcs got smart and left. The concert itself was rumored to be the "Woodstock of the West"; it was anything BUT! Even though I knew some Hell's Angels that lived in the Haight where I did, most everyone was pretty bummed-out to see about a hundred of them ride up that day, and park near the stage and act, for the most part, like, well, like Hell's Angels! Nobody really picked a fight, and I'm sure they kept the guy with the gun from seriously injuring a band member, but their presence just added another dark aspect to an already dreary day, and the fact that the concert promoters supplied too few toilet facilities, with human excrement and fluids flowing freely around the site, added to a general attitude of disappointment for the entire affair. I know that the acid that the Jefferson Airplane tossed out into the crowd was good stuff, though.
DeRienzo–What about the Rolling Stones. Altamont is like the hippie’s big downfall. BARGER –They say that was the end of the Age of Aquarius, but actually to us it’s just another day in the life of a Hell’s Angel. A guy pulled a gun on us, he got killed and that’s the bottom line. We got movies of him shooting at us, we got movies of him getting killed and nobody went to jail for it. There was a trial, everybody was acquitted. SONNY BARGER INTERVIEW
I was there that day in December of '69- the end of the sixities. We arrived at 7AM so got a place to stand about 50 feet back from the stage but at the very bottom of the hill at stage right. Things were very cool until well after the music started. I especially remember liking The Flying Burrito Brothers, Santanna, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. As the day progressed things got way out of hand. The Angels would respond to provocations by beating the hippies. A naked fat guy especially got thumped. I have personal experience with Meridith Hunter who died that day. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon there was a comotion behind us as a black man in a lime green sweater was walking through the crowd in an agressive manner. He seemed to be deliberately bumping into people instead of walking around and excusing himself. He made an impression on me as he essentially ran right thru me in his advance. The lime green sweater make him doubly stick out but what really freaked me out was that he had some kind of weapon semi concealed under his sleve. It looked to me like a piece of wood that had a hypodermic needle embedded in it's tip. Luckily he was quickly by us as he made his way toward the front. There was maybe a 2 hour wait before the Stones came on- word that day was that the Stones were waitng for the dark for filming purposes and didn't want to follow the Dead- so there was no one else left. During that 2 hour period the Angels rode their choppers through the crowd and parked maybe 10 feet from the stage. During this time some of the bikes got knocked over or vandalized which of course caused more hippies to get beat up. It was aways from us but each time it happened the crowd trying to get away from the Angels would push up against us and we were forced back maybe 10 feet. Once it got dark and the Stones came on things progressively got worse. Sympathy for the Devil Indeed. It seemed like each song had some altercation going on. Probably the biggest one was the one were Meridith was killed. The word that day was that Meredith had a grudge against the Angels stemming from one of his relatives getting beat up (not at Altamont) and he was out for revenge. We stayed for a couple more songs but the vibe was really ugly so we decided to leave early. I remember walking up and away from the stage to get to my car. There was really no light except that from the stage so it got progressively darker as we continued away from the stage. Hippies had started little fires everywhere that basically were from the days trash as well as wet ground cover- it had been raining the previous days. I remember them as really stinky, smokey fires. (Garcia described it as a fine day in hell). Years later I was freaked out to see the murder of Meredith in the Give Me Shelter movie. Until then I didn't know much about his death. I hadn't connected him with any of the altercations upfront. But then there was that lime green sweater again. Wow- haven't really thought about that day for many years.
I remember from the documentary that one of the members of the Jefferson Airplane got punched in the face and knocked out by a Hell's Angel. It looked like he threw his tamborine at one of the Hell's Angels that was roughing up a fan and then jumped off the stage and tried to help.
Sounds like a real bummeramma. The ugliest Rock Concert in the history of the world happened in Stevens Point Wisconsin in 1970 and me and my friends were there. The security was the "Milwaukee Outlaws" motorcycle club and they were criminal thugs who went on an orgy of robbery, assault, rape and possibly murder. Sunday morning the crowd was quite fed up and charged down and ejected the Outlaws from the concert. A few people were shot by the outlaws in the charge but none fatally. The craziest thing I have ever seen was some raggedy hippies chucking rocks at six bikers attacking up the hill with pistols and shotguns blazing. Such courage! Then the bullets started zinging over my head and it was time to leave. Tundrahopper4
