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Rolling Stones
Listen to Rolling Stones:
The supposedly carefree days of the rock-and-roll festival crashed and burned on December 6, 1969, at the free concert the Rolling Stones sponsored at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway. The homegrown hippies who thought of San Francisco as the home base for the entire alternative lifestyle movement watched in horror as their dream collapsed into an uncontrollable orgy of violence. In one evening, the lingering optimism of the sixties came to a grinding halt. In retrospect, one thing made no sense at all. The San Francisco scene that thrived on peace and love had precious little in common with the androgynous and evil image of the Rolling Stones. Although it was purported to be an opportunity for the biggest love-in of the year, there must have been some inkling that the Rolling Stones were an inappropriate means to invoke feelings of mass brotherhood. The political mood of the time also played into the violence. The innocence of the 1967 love children was long over. In its place were the Weathermen, the Black Panthers and violent protesters of all shapes and sizes. Socially, things were drastically changed, as well. Charles Manson showed quite terrifyingly just how twisted the times could be. Pressure was building until, at Altamont, the balloon simply burst. The Stones had commissioned a film, titled Gimme Shelter, to document their tour of America that would end with their free performance in San Francisco. Inadvertently, it captured the events of that day with vivid clarity, and now, at the very least, serves as the most effective anti-drug film ever made.
Tainted drugs and overcrowding combined with haphazard planning for what can only be described as disastrous results. At the suggestion of the Grateful Dead, Hell's Angels were selected to act as 'buffers' between the stage and the impatient, exhausted, abused and drug-crazed crowd. The effect was like putting piranhas into a bowl of sick goldfish. Long before the show started, things were already obviously out of control. When the Hell's Angels arrived late, they parted the already packed crowd by riding their motorcycles headlong into the throng, showing little regard for the well-being of the people that they were purportedly 'controlling.' The crowd grew to gargantuan proportions and surged forward until movement became impossible, except for the flailing lunacy of the sickened acidheads, who were becoming more numerous as time wore on. By the time Jefferson Airplane took the stage, hundreds of unauthorized personnel were milling about with the band members. Skuffles were breaking out everywhere and even the stage proved unsafe when singer Marty Balin was knocked unconscious by a marauding Hell's Angel.
When the Stones finally took the stage at nightfall, things had brewed to a boiling point. It was unthinkable for them not to go on, since nobody knew what this maddened cauldron of human beings was capable of. Although the stage was cleared when they began their set, it took very little time for it to become overrun once again with drunken, drugged and violent 'buffers.' The rage and disdain that certain Angels felt toward the prancing effeminacy of Mick Jagger was fearfully plain, and it is a wonder that he or Keith Richards weren't slaughtered like Christians in a Roman Coliseum. The pitiful attempt of the musicians and staff to maintain their ‘60s idealism only exacerbated just how irresponsibly run and anarchic these events were. The violence culminated in a brutal stabbing at the front of the stage, which left its victim, Meredith Hunter, dead. The spirit of an entire generation symbolically died with him.
The reports of the underground press - notably the new magazine that shared the band’s name, Rolling Stone - were quick to indict the Stones as being ultimately responsible for the days events. The band lost its luster and was cast as conceited, callous, and greedy, with no regard for the safety of the audience. The feud between the Rolling Stones and Rolling Stone magazine had begun. After the furor settled down, the band retreated into the recording studio to record its next single, a typically rowdy rocker called "Brown Sugar", but delayed its release for more than a year. In a manner that only Jagger could pull off, the lyrics touch upon interracial oral sex and flagellation between a white slaveholder and his dark-skinned 'property'. Now the Stones were not only controversial, but tactless, racist and sexist. Everybody loved it. Such debauchery was anything but surprising, and since everybody was aware of the band's reputation, the song was somehow accepted as good-natured fun.
 
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