On December 6th 1969, The Rolling stones hosted
what proved to be the most tragic and violent concert in history at the
Altamont Speedway, ultimately silencing the rising counterculture movement and,
to an extent, the 60’s themselves. What started as a utopian dream of love,
ambition and enthusiastic hope had sadly faded away with the screams and
violence at Altamont.
 |
| Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones attracted a throng estimated
at 400,000 to the Altamont Speedway and, in the space of a few hours,
deep-sixed the spirit of their generation- A. E. Hotchner
|
Allow me to set the scene. The sixties were very much
reaching its end and the spirit that had permeated the heart of any nation, its
youth, was one of yearning. Yearning for widespread change in social and racial
views and an abandonment of outdated gender inequality. People wanted America
to live up to its slogan and truly embrace ‘’The Land of the Free’’.
The early sixties saw the youthful generation begin to
deconstruct conventional thinking and break the veneer of middle class safety
and upper class privilege. Music emerged as a splinter in our society with the
clean and well-dressed Beatles and the rough and edgy Rolling Stones. The
Stones lived life on the dirtier side of town and their partying and anarchy
spirit became legendary. Their fans responded to this energy and thrived off it[1].
As the decade went on, what started as a dream of happiness and hope faded into
screams in the dark of The Altamont concert on December 6th, 1969.
The tragedy here at Altamont was not necessarily the result
of one cause, and there is no pure evil, Al-Capone type character in the
background. When people embrace free thinking on a large scale, folks who have
differing views on what freedom means are inevitably going to find themselves in
conflict.
 |
| Altamont, with its violent Hell's Angels and murder, became the embodiment of the death of the 60s dream- Alexis Petridis |
In the 1970 documentary Gimme
Shelter, the situation becomes plain very quickly. The release of Gimme Shelter defined the end of the
1960s, the end of the baby boom, and the end of the counterculture which has
become a strong embodiment in the annals of popular cultural history[2].
The documentary serves as an interpretation of a chaotic coming together of
diverse interests and values. It serves as one of many important passages in
the journey and life of the counterculture as well as reinforcing the way film
and music have been viewed as markers of a movement[3].
When it said that the sixties had ended at Altamont, it’s in
this moment. A moment that was captured in film by a documentary crew that had
no idea they were filming. A drug, crazed fan, Meredith Hunter, high on
methamphetamines, and angry from an earlier confrontation, raised his gun at a
member of the Hells Angels, who served as security on stage. He lunged towards
them and member Alan Passaro, brutally stabbed him before he could fire a shot[4].
Does this serve as a case of instant karma or simply a public venting of two different
factions and their societal roles?
Thus the 1960s had come to an end when it seemed as though a
generation could change the world. The abuse of the mind expanding drugs that inspired
the counterculture movement had finally served up a bill to the hippie
generation, and it had to be paid in full. The seventies were a decade of dark
times and the eighties, an era of family values and capitalism. On that tragic
day, a spirit of music and social change had died.
Feel free to leave you thoughts and comments below
Luke Garcia
[1] Rex
Thompson, The Chilling Story Behind The
Altamont Concert That Ended The Spirit Of The 60’s, 2015 http://liveforlivemusic.com/features/the-chilling-story-behind-the-altamont-concert-that-ended-the-spirit-of-the-60s/
[2] Matthew
J. Bartkowiak, Yuya Kiuchi, The Music of
Counterculture Cinema: A Critical Study of 1960s and 1970s Soundtracks, (North
Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2015), p.20
[3]
Charlotte Zwerin, Gimme Shelter (1970)
[4] Ibid
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