Hyperfocused on one of my favorite topics: The Altamont Free Concert of 1969

[Evil Angel]

Where to start...

I've had a bad couple of days and so like I usually do I'm distracting myself with information that I love to consume.

As a leather wearing rock n roll fan , 1969 and onwards is a very fascinating time to me. Ever since I saw Gimme Shelter I finally had a reason not to think the Rolling Stones were totally boring; that is to say, their superstar antics and Jagger's personality has always pissed me off and so despite being in love with several of their songs (Get Off My Cloud, Sympathy for the Devil to name a couple) I could never "dig it". It's funny to me that this movie, despite being their own, effortlessly paints them as being the fairly emotionally devoid pricks that I always assumed that they were simply by attempting to document their own tragedy as people helpless to the fiery chaos surrounding them.

It was quite obvious to me through the movie that the whole thing is the Stones' fault more or less besides the muddled behaviors of the polarizing human beings in attendance and reading further only fortifies this notion.

So without trailing on and on... I think this is a cool conversation topic. Especially because I imagine there is a broad age group spectrum here. There's a tinge of biker history here (no matter your opinion on 1%ers) among the rock n roll and the kids on drugs.

There's lots for me to say! But I want to share this classic article from the Rolling Stone, 1970, written right after the show itself basically if you've never read it, its a good sister piece to the Gimme Shelter movie (which I could watch 100x over).

The Rolling Stones Disaster At Altamont: Let It Bleed

If you don't mind I will progressively add some commentary of my own here from time to time, so long as people wanna talk about it... from the way Sympathy of the Devil sounded during this show, to the creative writing/speech recorded in this article.

Does anyone know where/if I can find extra footage from the concert? Maybe unused footage from Gimme Shelter or even photos/footage from people unrelated to the film crews (there were over 10 designated crews for the movie alone)

Were you there? Was mom and dad there? Good books? More articles?

A very recent article, showcasing a new photo book about the event with photographs by Bill Owens. Very interesting how peoples interests sync up, huh?

Cheers