Is that the so-called Woodstock West concert? Was it the Stones? Jefferson Airplane? Someone was killed. Hell's Angels were "security".
Excellent work, Paul!
The Stones' concert at Altamont Speedway represents the dark violent side of the '60s, just as Woodstock was the peaceful happy side. The Stones were winding up a U.S. tour and wanted to end with a free concert, a la Woodstock. On the advice of the Grateful Dead, they hired the Hell's Angels as security. The Angels hit and knocked out a member of the Jefferson Airplane at one point and when the Grateful Dead heard that, they bailed without going onstage. Santana, Crosby Stills Nash & Young and the Flying Burrito Brothers also played, but supposedly there was a bad vibe throughout; the musicians had to keep pleading with the crowd to settle down.
When the Stones went onstage, they kept having to stop playing. "Brothers and sisters, why are we fighting?" Mick asks the crowd. Finally, while they're playing the Hells Angels stabbed a young man named Meredith Hunter. The whole thing was captured on film by the Maysleys Brothers, documentarians who just happened to be doing a film about the whole tour. The film,
Gimme Shelter, is excellent -- my second favorite concert film, I think.
There it is! If I threw in a few quotes from Keith you'd have the research paper I wrote for a college English class.
Your turn ...
