Entering the 1970’s, the counterculture revolution that engulfed the youth of the Sixties had appeared to have reached the pinnacle of its movement. The men who grew their hair out and the woman who wore flowers in their hair, the antithesis of the straight-edged, conformity of the Fifties, came to believe that they had been granted a superior philosophical doctrine of the world, one that would flourish with an approach of peace and love, opposite the war and carnage produced by the Vietnam War. On the surface, the Vietnam War, which had come to fuel the aggravation between society and government, appeared to be deescalating. In the span of three months, from September to November, pivotal events took place that encouraged oppositionists of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam that a shift was occurring in the government. On September 16th, 1969, President Richard Nixon ordered the evacuation of roughly 35,000 troops in Vietnam, while also reducing the amount of draft calls. Then, on October 15th, 1969, the “Moratorium” peace demonstrations were held in various U.S. cities, and exactly one month later, on November 15th, 1969, 250,000 peaceful protestors marched on Washington, becoming the largest anti-war protest in U.S. history.
Above all, the most symbolic event of 1969 and, perhaps, the single greatest moment in the history of American music, came to capture the essence of the Sixties counterculture zeitgeist, maximizing the level of peace, love, freedom, sex, drugs, and rock and roll that has yet to be matched. The Woodstock Music Festival was held over a three-day weekend in mid-August, featuring the greatest musical performers of the decade, and drew a crowd of over 350,000 in attendance, all of whom sought to exhibit a form of protest by basking in the harmony of peace and music. Rock and Roll, the soundtrack of the revolution, served as the catalyst of the Anti-War movement using influential protest songs, engaging with the rebellion of the youth, and promoting the denouncement of the past generation’s conception of order, justice, and politics. Among the headliners were Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, The Who, and countless others, proving to be one of the greatest three days of music ever staged.
In turn, with the peaceful anti-War demonstrations gaining some traction, atop of the Woodstock Music Festival that illuminated the imagination of the new era, the Seventies were set in place to follow suit, as the successor decade where the flower children would blossom into their roles as the prophesized revolutionary’s, chosen as the leaders to disperse the gospel of peace, love, and rock and roll. However, just four months after the unfathomable impact of Woodstock, the counterculture revolution would come to a drastic stop, thwarted by a single moment that would serve as the starting point that spurred a chain-of-events that would ultimately erase any of the growing optimism that was had for the new decade.
Following the success of Woodstock, the Rolling Stones set in motion plans to organize a sister-festival in California: “Woodstock of the West,” conceived as a free-admission, mirror-image of the New York-based festival, only this time, providing accessibility for the California-based combatants of the hippie era. For the Rolling Stones, “Woodstock of the West” would be the perfect start for their upcoming U.S. tour, where the Stone’s planned to utilize their preconceived festival as a promotion for their most recent album, Let It Bleed, as well as laying the foundation for the production of their upcoming concert documentary, Brown Sugar. Furthermore, the Stone’s managed to add some of the most popular bands at the time, including Jefferson’s Airplane, Santana, and the Grateful Dead, thereby assembling a roster of acts that would perform with the same fervor of Woodstock.
However, unlike Woodstock, the “Woodstock of the West” was hastily organized, failing to secure a venue until two days prior to the event. Initially planned to be held at Golden Gate park, where the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were scheduled to perform on prior commitments, the concert on Golden Gate park was quickly stalled by the acting Mayor of San Francisco, Joe Alioto, a traditionalist, who maintained a staunch “anti-hippie” attitude towards the rebellious and undisciplined youth. Unable to perform at Golden Gate park, the Stones turned to Sears Point Raceway, yet more conflict emerged when the company who owned Sears Point, Filmways, demanded distribution rights for any film used at Sears Point Raceway. The Stones, who had planned to use their free festival as the basis of their new documentary, adamantly refused, instead settling on Altamont Speedway, located near Tracy, California, as the venue to host the festival. However, with much time lost to securing a location for the festival, the construction for the concert was delayed until December 4th, two days before the start of the festival. If the stress of organizing the actual construction of the venue was not enough, at the Grateful Dead’s behest, the Stones hired local Hells Angels, the notorious biker-gang of the Sixties, to head the security detail of the festival, in exchange for $500 worth of beer. Seen as a cost-friendly fix, opposed to anxiously trying to hire a professional security team, the Hells Angels were perceived as ally’s in the counterculture revolution, who would maintain the peace, while participating in the love and appreciation of music. Unfortunately, the hiring of the Hells Angels would be a grave mistake, one that would haunt the Rolling Stones for the remainder of their careers.
On the day of the festival, the lack of planning was apparent, for most of the attendance were unable to see the stage, due to the rushed construction phase, and to actually physically get to the venue, concertgoers opted to walk along the highway, due to the Altamonts lack of accessibility for those without cars, which, presumably, was a majority of the attendance. As the festival progressed, the peace and love that intoxicated the crowd at Woodstock quickly evaporated at the Altamont, being consumed by the rowdiness, aggression, and intimidation displayed by the Hells Angels. The “security” team needed a security team themselves, for the more the Hells Angels drank and ingested an assortment of drugs, the more the Hells Angels morphed into the embodiment of chaos and anarchy that they were proud to display. In the short time that the festival had started, members of Hells Angels jumped Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane, leaving him badly beaten and unconscious, and an unidentified Hells Angel stabbed Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills, and Nash repeatedly in the leg with a sharpened pool stick. Periodic stages of violence followed, as members of the Hells Angels mercilessly beat fans in attendance with pool sticks or by outright outnumbering and jumping lone audience members. The Grateful Dead, on edge with the violence that continued, combined with the signs of a bad acid trip, refused to perform, electing instead to ride out their ongoing trip away from the mayhem, and more importantly, their own safety. Yet, the show went on, as the Rolling Stones readied to set the stage, hoping their performance may revive the spirit of Woodstock, and put to rest the increasing temperament of the Hells Angels and the crowd.
At first, the Rolling Stones performance was going considerably smooth, with less muddle and more dancing, but the atmosphere at the festival once again shifted once the Stones broke into “Under My Thumb,” a pop-blues tune about Mick Jagger’s ability to charm and manipulate any woman. While “Under My Thumb” was blasting through the speakers, Meredith Hunter, an 18-year old who travelled across the country to attend to festival, climbed atop one of the speakers to secure a better viewpoint for himself and his girlfriend. The Hells Angels noticed Hunter on top of the speaker and stampeded through the crowd, where one Angel viciously grabbed Hunter and threw him off the top of the speaker. The Angel preceded to grip Hunter’s arm, at which point, Hunter tried to escape the clutches of the mammoth biker, resulting in the Angel punching the 18-year old square in the jaw. Shortly after, more Angels crowded around Hunter, punching and kicking him from different angles, while he was left defenseless on the ground. Somehow, Hunter was able to burst back up and began shuffling through the crowd, hoping that he could end his night without any more harm. However, Hunter was unable to gain any significant distance from the, now, five Hells Angels who were pursuing him. Prior to the festival, Hunter, an African-American teenager, was provided a .22 Smith and Wesson by his older sister, rationalizing that being an African-American teenager at a predominately white-attended concert might draw unwarranted racial anxieties and that Hunter should carry the weapon in order to protect himself. Hunter attempted to pull the gun, but his girlfriend yelled out to him not to shoot, leading Hunter to try and continue through the crowd, while attempting to holster his gun at the same time. Alan Passaro, a member of the Hells Angels chasing Hunter, was able to navigate through the crowd and jumped on the back of Hunter, stabbing him four times in the back as Hunter fell to the ground, writhing in pain. The Hells Angels, rather than assist Hunter to a medical tent or escort him out, abruptly began beating Hunter while he was subdued on the ground. Eventually, several bystanders came to Hunter’s aid, but the penetration from the knife, the increasing loss of blood, and the horrific beating that ensued the stabbing was to grave, and Hunter, at the age of 18, passed away later that night. The murder of Meredith Hunter would shock and disgust members of the counterculture era, symbolically erasing the peace and love that was the mantra for the entire Sixties.
Perhaps the most haunting detail of all, the band played on, the crowd sung and danced along, all while an innocent Rolling Stones fan was stabbed and pummeled to death in the backdrop. Members of the audience would not hear about news until they returned home later that night, and even then, some would not get the news until the morning. Since Altamont, members of the Rolling Stones have stuck to a code of silence, failing to accept responsibility for such a hastily organized, unregulated, and disgusting display of incompetence at their own music festival. Alan Passaro, the Hells Angel who had stabbed Hunter initially and further participated in the constant barrage of violence, was later acquitted on charges of self-defense, arguing he feared for his life once he realized that Hunter had the gun. However, footage from the Brown Sugar documentary has since disproven Passaro’s claim that his attack was in self-defense, capturing the moments right before the murder of Hunter, where the young man is trying to escape, rather than evoke any real threat. Most devastating in the scheme of events was Meredith Hunter, an 18-year old rock and roll fan, hoping to be immersed in the live performance of his favorite band, was murdered in cold blood, unable to fulfil the rest of his life due to the recklessness, viciousness, and mercilessness of some hoped-up bikers fueled on booze, drugs, and power.
Whereas Woodstock captured all the wonder, sense of community, and love that was a product of the counterculture, Altamont and the murder of Meredith Hunter would foreshadow the Seventies of a decade of more distrust, nihilism, and death to the Sixties ideology. Shortly after Hunter’s death, Charles Manson, the self-proclaimed hippie guru, along with several members of his “family”, a group of counterculture orphans who came to view Manson as father figure, were arrested and indicted for the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders, ultimately destroying the image of the hippie as an embodiment of peace and love. By the end of April 1970, Richard Nixon stunned the American public by increasing U.S. presence in Cambodia, thereby concluding the Vietnam War, that had entered it’s the seventh year, had no end in sight. One week after Nixon increased U.S. involvement in Cambodia, students on college campuses across the country participated in peaceful protests, yet this time, opposed to being allowed to practice their right to peaceful protest, four students were shot and killed at Kent State University, making a disgrace of the First Amendment.
The list continues. Terrorism at the Olympics. Watergate. Jonestown. All the excitement, passion, and optimism that arose just months before entering the new decade, was grinded to screeching halt. Although the list of events can not be attributed to one particular moment, the Altamont Music Festival and murder of Meredith Hunter served as a symbol for the end of the Sixties and counterculture revolution, marking a period of further distrust and nihilism for years to come.
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