The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert held on Saturday, December 6, 1969 at the Altamont Speedway, northern California, United States. The event is best known for considerable violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident, and one by LSD-induced drowning in an irrigation canal. Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage.
Explanation:
But things had not gone well in the days leading up to December 6, 1969. First of all, the concert was meant to take place at Sears Point in Sonoma, near San Francisco, an area where many attendees could find decent accommodation. However, two days before the concert, landowners at Sears Point became greedy and asked for a fee of at least $100,000 as well as distribution rights to any film made at the concert. It probably could have been negotiated, but reportedly Jagger balked. Hence, in desperation, Altamont Speedway was chosen as the new location for the concert only two days ahead. A remote place, surrounded by garbage, tires, and wrecked cars, it lacked toilets or water, but the owner offered it for free.The second ominous development was a group of Hells Angels were hired as security for $500 ($3,345 in 2017 currency) and free beer. It’s still unclear who exactly hired them. If someone had thought it through, you couldn’t expect a biker gang to have a lot of tolerance for a crowd high on joints and LSD trying to get close to the stage, which was only four feet high. Such a low stage at a free rock concert was obviously a bad idea, but there was no time to build a new one. Technically, everything was rushed and done at the last minute–the podium, the lighting, the sound system.The atmosphere in front of the stage was hostile throughout the entire concert. In-person accounts report that, while everyone was trying to enjoy the music, the security guards soon started beating concertgoers, hurling full cans of beer into the audience, and using weighted motorcycle chains and pool cues to push the crowd away from the stage. What triggered this situation is unclear. During the first set by Santana, the Angels seriously hurt the Grateful Dead’s permit specialist, a non-violent peace activist named Bert Kanegson, who received 60 stitches in his head and had to wear a bandage that looked like a turban.
Denise Jewkes from the Ace of Cups was also attending the concert in her sixth month of pregnancy and got hit by a beer bottle, causing a skull fracture that required emergency surgery. Martin Balin of Jefferson Airplane was knocked down by a Hell’s Angel on stage, in front of the audience, while the band was performing. He continued beating Balin backstage and even knocked Rex Jackson of the Grateful Dead unconscious, for trying to rescue Balin.
It all culminated during the performance of the Rolling Stones. Although accounts differ, what is certain is that a student, Meredith Hunter, got into a scuffle with two of the Hells Angels and ended up being killed by one. By everyone’s accounts, including his girlfriend’s, Hunter was very high on drugs when he approached the scene. He got into a fight with the security guards and was brutally kicked. By this time, Jagger interrupted his band’s performance, appealing the audience to calm.However, even if the audience was calm, the Angels were now primed for more trouble. Hunter approached the stage area once more, only this time he pulled a revolver from his jacket, most likely a long-barreled .22 caliber, which he pointed to the air. Most of what is known about that December evening comes from Gimme Shelter, a documentary by filmmakers Albert and David Maysles, which was filmed at the Altamont concert. The footage shows an orange flash at the end of Hunter’s pistol, but whether it is a film defect or it was a gunshot is hard to determine. But the following can be seen: Alan Passaro ran at Hunter with a knife, grabbed the boy’s pistol, and stabbed him.
But even Hunter’s death didn’t end the violence. It continued. Some say the murder of Hunter stands as a symbol of the beginning of the end of a careless hippie time. It is remembered as one of the darkest events in the history of rock: “The death of innocence,” Altamont was called.Passaro was arrested, but acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. And, as for the Stones, well, they seemed alternately saddened, confused, and defensive.
