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Post by rick on Sept 23, 2018 1:46:40 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Sept 23, 2018 11:55:42 GMT -5
The irony about Altamont, although I think a lot of people may already know this anyway, is that the Stones felt forced into giving a "free" concert because they were roundly smeared, by no less than (ironically enough) Rolling Stone magazine itself, for not appearing at Woodstock, and for supposedly charging a top concert ticket price that, these days, seems bargain basement, $12.50. But they didn't plan it all that well, having it moved from place to place around the Bay Area, including Golden Gate Park, and the Sonoma Raceway in the White Country, before setting it up at Altamont, which is 55 miles southeast of Oakland, practically in the middle of nowhere.
There is also some dispute as to who in the hell thought it was a good idea to have the San Bernardino, Oakland, and San Jose chapters of the Hells Angels act as "security", though many thought this was the Grateful Dead's doing (and that band didn't even play there, even though they were scheduled). Those clowns were on speed, on booze, and on LSD, parking their bikes at the edge of the stage, which incidentally was only four feet off the ground, and hitting and beating anybody who even laid a fingernail on those bikes. Given their behavior and the amount of drugs going around, it was probably inevitable that something horrible would happen. And unfortunately, that something horrible happened to Meredith Hunter.
The irony about Altamont is that the band that arguably gave the best "performance" there, one where everybody seemed on their "best behavior", was Gram and the Flying Burrito Brothers--and they were a C&W/rock outfit, with Bernie Leadon having joined just a few months before. Theirs may have been the only actual highlight of that whole debacle, in the minds of many, even those who otherwise didn't care for country music.
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