Altamont Free Concert 1969

[dave 911]

Did anyone on this board go to this back in the day? I just learned about it....holy crap!

Would love to hear some stories from someone that was actually there!

Altamont Free Concert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've put the documentary on reserve at our library to watch it. Who would have thought that having Hells Angels as security guards and paying them in beer that they could drink during the show might not have been a great idea?

[gorthar]

The Stones documentary (not sure if that's the one you ordered from the library), is on YouTube. I checked that out at the library several years back and I remember thinking what a mess... Bad vibes all around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goMhOK3Q0Hg

[widebody911]

Four births were reported during the event

I wonder how man conceptions were scored.

[MMiller]

Watched it last week.... The anti-Woodstock

When "Sympathy for the Devil" is played it brings the whole event into focus

[Linderpat]

this concert is also referenced in the lyrics of American Pie by Don McLean:

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
'Cause fire is the devil's only friend

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan's spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

The above are references to the Stones at that concert, where the Hells Angles were the security (imagine that - wonder how things got out of control:-))

[craigster59]

I was too young to attend the concert, but we were heading back to our house in Castro Valley from fishing in the Sac Delta and saw the traffic jam in Altamont Pass.

A whole heck of a lot of people and cars, it must have been really something. I've watched the doc numerous times, the Maysles Bros are great film makers (check out Salesman an earlier doc they did).

[GG Allin]

Coincidence, two dock guys got in to an argument here today and I said in my best Mick Jagger "who's fighting and what for".

[tabs]

I met a gal who was part of the SF scene in the Haight in the late 60's she and her husband who was a Bass player for the Isley brothers was briefly in the film.

The murder occurred during the playing of Under My Thumb..The RS after this tour did not play Sympathy For The Devil again until their 75 tour. Jagger said, "The audiences get weird everytime we play that song."

The RS during their Hyde Park Free concert in June of 69 had the English Poof division of the Hells Angles patrolling around the concert. Let me say they were nothing like their American cousins which the RS found out about first hand.

The RS NEVER were the same band after ALtamont, they never played with the same ferocity and intent again. After Altamont they realized that they were entertainers and not out on the fringe of society outlaws. For at Altamont their outlaw image met the asphalt when they ran into some real outlaws in the Hells Angles. Keith Richards after Altamont tried to keep up the image for a few more years by delving into the depths of Heroin.

My favorite scene in the movie is when the RS are playing Under My Thumb and they show a HA looking sideways at Jagger like he was a little f@gg0t and another HA emoting till they physically pulled him aside...In this clip you can hear fear in Jaggers voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mZdvFSiWQI

[CROWSC]

I was there for three days. It was like a city of it's own. Parked my car on Hwy. 580 (Altamont Pass).
they actually closed the freeway and made people park on the road. and walk in through the hills.
It was an experience that I will never forget. Free Love and Drugs was the daily menu. We were quite a ways from the stage, but walked down there when we saw a helicopter coming to see who it was when it landed and it was the Stones. There were people as far as the eye could see. Never saw the action when the Angels got nasty. But heard about it later. There is a movie called Gimme Shelter that documents the event. We had a lot of concerts and Rock Festivals in the Bay Area in those days. Went to one at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds around that time and the Angels stabbed some guy there the night before the festival at the camp grounds. The guy was naked and running through peoples tents and he must have run through the wrong tent. He was wiped on some acid or something. Back then we used to know some people that worked for the promoters of some of the concerts and they would get us jobs working as security to make sure nobody snuck in, we would of course let our friends sneak in. Was some unforgettable times.
Saw some of the greatest acts to ever perform.

[tabs]

The following is a Boot of the the RS Nov 8, 1969 concert in LA. In this concert you can hear the RS play with full unedited and unabridged fury of the RS at their best. Quiet something, which is a lot different then anything you ever heard from them again.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wg19jcjFx8

[sammyg2]

Don't what would be worse, getting beat up by the hells angels or having to listen to Jagger mono-tone scream into the mike.

[Don Ro]

Originally Posted by craigster59

I was too young to attend the concert, but we were heading back to our house in Castro Valley from fishing in the Sac Delta and saw the traffic jam in Altamont Pass.

Small world...I lived in Castro Valley at that time...on Seven Hills Road.
I had a chance to go to the "concert" but chose to not...don't like outdoor rock 'n roll events. The crowds get too weird.
Glad I didn't.

[Flieger]

This gives you a sense of the tension... they almost got in a fight with the Airplane

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Flieger

This gives you a sense of the tension... they almost got in a fight with the Airplane

Marty Balin got his self knocked out by the Angels.

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by tabs

Marty Balin got his self knocked out by the Angels.

Could've been worse, as it turned out...

[Jeff Higgins]

In one of his books, Sonny Barger claims to have pressed a small revolver into Jagger's ribs when things started going south, whispering in his ear to "keep playing, mofo...". Maybe a little too "real" for a wannabe tough guy...

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

In one of his books, Sonny Barger claims to have pressed a small revolver into Jagger's ribs when things started going south, whispering in his ear to "keep playing, mofo...". Maybe a little too "real" for a wannabe tough guy...

So says Sonny.

[tabs]

Ifn you listen through the various Boots of the Stones Greatest tour in 69, starting with the Hyde Park free warm up concert in London in June through the Oakland to NYC Madison Square Garden shows in December... you can hear them progress and develop the songs into polished versions which really havn't been improved upon since.

The following is posted below the the Nov 69 show in LA...I picked this for the above listening pleasure as the songs were still in process and there was still some jamming going on.


he following is something of mine that I am reposting from a vid that got deleted (the Oakland Shows)


The 1969 tour could aptly be named THE MONEY SHOT TOUR cause this was the tour where the Stones delivered and earned the sobriquet '"The Greatest Rock and Roll Band." It was on this tour that they played with a ferocious on the edge intensity that they never matched again as at the culmination of this tour the Stones outlaw persona hit the asphalt at Altamont where they met some real outlaws in the Hells Angels. In 1972 the Stones substituted energy for intensity that they couldn't keep up and by 1975 they were bloated and sloppy Jet Setters riding high on the past acclaim.

So here it is the opening concert on the 1969 tour where you hear Jagger cajole and growl like Lucifer himself while Richards riffs sound like a howl from Hell and Taylor's soaring counterpoint sounds like a heavenly choir. But what made this tour extraordinary were the introduction of the songs Jumping Jack Flash, Stray Cat Blues, Sympathy For The Devil, Gimme Shelter and Midnight Rambler that crossed and recrossed the line between sanity and madness*. For much of this materiel's genesis came from the swirling emotional chaos wrought by the disintegration of Brian Jones, the Stones drug busts and the uncertainty about the bands future. So when you hear these songs please remember his name for after this tour the "little twerp"** didn't think he was Lucifer anymore.

* Even Jagger said that whenever they played Sympathy the audience would get "weird"

** Ry Cooder once said, "That the little twerp sic Jagger thinks that he is Lucifer."

[KFC911]

Thanks for the history lesson guys .....Tabs is spot on with the facts, Sonny is FOS, and the Stones from '69-74 were MY favorite version (with the OTHER Mick )...I called 'em "Mick's Disco Band" in the mid/late 70s. I'd love to hear some high quality bootlegs as I'm putting my "wall of sound" back together (Dead used the HAs as security before this fiasco as I recall)...but for those who want to hear the soundtrack of my youth: "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" (one of the best live albums of all time) pretty much sums it up for me....YMMV

[creaturecat]

speed kills. as do Hells Angels.
there was a lot of speed going around at that point in history.