Rolling Stones At Altamont thoughts

I'll accept sarcasm. That's a better term than "taunting". Barger, though, who tells the story, uses it as the impetus for his own violent action.

I still have doubts whether Richards would needle (is that okay to say? ) the leader of the Hell's Angels. Especially the chap who claims he held a gun to Richards' head and told him to play on! (Of course, if the gun to head thing happened, that may have been after the "kick in the head" episode).

 

George never doing psychedelics again...the Maui mushroom growers near Seven Sacred Pools may disagree with that.

 

I think meth heads is a descriptor that only came into usage over the past 25 (?) years or so with the proliferation of home meth labs. When we did speed, it was usually snorted or swallowed in pill form, and the term used was speed freak.

 

That was sometimes, but not always, part of their modus operandi. It generally cut space between their target (in this case the stage) and the audience they were looking to keep at bay. It didn't work out too well at Altamont. Part of reason for that was due to the logistics and actual layout of the event born from the last minute organization of it. It was poorly planned to the extreme and the crowd inertia tended to push forward toward the stage. That's what caused a big part of the problem. Eventually some of the crowd pushed into the Angels' bikes as you noted, and but more trouble ensued.

 

I remember it well. And you're right Ralph, amphetamines (speed) has been around for over a century too. I did a search of methamphetamine and its been around for a long time, but was prescribed by physicians. They mentioned in the "facts" page I saw that it was abused by West coast folks in the 60s. I'd only heard of meth since the 90s.

 

Meth heads, speed freaks, tweakers, crackheads, druggies, skanks, sketchers ... take your choice. It's all good bad.

The good bad ol' days.

 

So you gonna likey my post then? LOL

Gettouttahere

 

Doesn't matter if he walked back to a car to get a gun or if he managed to fire shots or what drug he was on.

What matters is he had one and he rushed the stage while waving it around. If the Hell's Angels did ONE thing right that night, it was stopping him.

Don't believe me? Google "dimebag Darrel"

 

Absolutely. The other parts are just curiosity, for me.

 

Of *course* Barger uses Richards' comment as the impetus for more violence (well, supposedly anyway). But I still don't read that as Keith "needling" Barger. You seem to think Richards was trying to get a rise out of Barger, while it seems far more likely he was simply being critical of the Angels' behavior.

It would certainly be interesting to see all of the raw footage from Altamont. Even ignoring stuff like the order being rearranged a bit (which isn't obvious just by watching the film), there are points where it is clear continuity is broken and/or the audio and visual are out of sync. I doubt there was any intention by the filmmakers to deceive, but they clearly weren't worried about accurately representing every tiny detail.

 

No apology needed my friend. It's a fairly common misconception, but we're actually straightening out a lot of misconceptions with this thread. However I need to correct you but again >> There were meth heads there, and by the score. Peace and out on that.

 

I'm interpreting it from Barger, the storytellers, point of view! I'm suggesting that's the way Barger interpreted it.

Me? The more I think about it, the more I doubt that Richards ever said those words.

 

I agree, I think Richards was basically saying, "Hey, one of you can simply move her off the stage, you don't have to have four guys surround her and beat her into submission." And then apparently Barger's response is to kick her in the head because...he doesn't like being corrected by Keith Richards. Nice guy.

I believe Barger later made some comments to the effect that using a bunch of guys was the safer option, and that following Keith's suggestion to use only one guy necessitated more violence, which makes sense assuming that the reason four guys converged on the one lady was to remove her in the most peaceful manner possible. Somehow I doubt this was the plan.

 

Also the guy with the total "WTF? This is so wrong" expression standing right in front of Jagger, who almost seems like the moral consciousness of the movie. He clearly says "Why?" at one point, can anyone else what else he was saying? Something like "Just get off, man!"

 

I kind of doubt that happened, although Barger might've wanted to pull a gun on Keith! I think if he had, Keef would've at least alluded to it by now. And if the movie is any indication, the Angels were delivering the same message as he was - calm down or there ain't gonna be no music!

 

that was George's claim - he certainly stayed away from the throngs with regard to drug use.

I think he even said this in the Anthology - perhaps he wanted to be portrayed in a different light
but he didn't show back up in San Fran walking among the crowd at any festivals

that modus operandi was - don't cross this line - they put their bikes in harms way deliberately and just waiting defiantly for something to happen

I think Keith was being tongue in cheek
Barger was like - "oh yeah, watch this"
taking matters in their own hands and dishing out blows was a sport for the HA by that time in the evening

actually even earlier - recall the naked fat guy that gets pummeled for being an offensive sight

 

Oliva, in interview, complained about his coke habit.
George wasn't exactly a throng type, uh ever.

 

I haven't read Keith's autobiography but imagine if he had said anything about this, someone would have posted it by now. But just being silent about an unpleasant memory, too, isn't too unusual. Not to mention if you've been scared witless. (I gather the idea is that Jagger didn't know he was targeted to be killed until way after, years and years after...but the less said the better).

 

It's also worth noting that - again, at least in the film - there's no evidence of a kick to the head, and the handling of the naked woman doesn't appear to be particularly rough or violent. It's *possible* those things happened, either off-camera or in shots that didn't make the cut, but there's no such evidence in the final film. Although, once the Angels get involved the film doesn't cut back to her, so who knows.

BTW, does anyone know who the Angel was on stage next to Jagger, who was staring at him during Under My Thumb (and who subsequently deals with the bearded guy on stage)?

 

do you mean the dark curly haired guy just to the left of Mick that rises up and says no, shakes his head


I always found even worse than Jagger's dancing away during a totally inappropriate time, the ecstatic grin he has feeding off his star power and playing it up for the audience

Odd you see very little of the other stones - a glimpse of Wyman
the cameras were fixated on Jagger, the crowd and angels, then Keith as he interacts

the shot of Mick Taylor is just his back briefly, he pulls a cigarette off his guitar neck and has a quick puff during some pretty harrowing moments when the Angels go wild and the band breaks down

 

Yeah...but look what happened to Marty Balin moments after the same "there ain't gonna be any music" conversation!

"Singer Grace Slick tries to calm things down – “Easy, easy” – before Balin jumps into the crowd to break up a fight, where an Angel wearing a raccoon-skin hat knocks him out cold.

Cutler recalls that he jumped off the stage and walked warily over to the Angel, hoping to cool things down. The Angel, friendly enough to Cutler, introduced himself as ‘Animal’ and told him to call him by his nickname, Mule.

“I said to Mule, ‘If you start knocking the musicians out, we ain’t going to have any music.’ Everyone agreed on that,” Cutler says.

“So he went over to Marty with me, to say “No hard feelings, man, but you did say ‘**** you’.” Marty came round, saw Mule, said ‘**** you’, and Mule knocked him out again!”

 

And I wouldn't say this to Animal/Mule's face...but what are the odds that "Animal" has a nickname.

 

Also sporting a cap with a sort of houndstooth pattern? I do believe so.

 

IIRC correctly, you can hear that guy say those words on the bootleg of the show I have, which was recorded by a couple of guys right up against the monitors (I believe you can even see them taping the show in the film).

 

Sorry...staring during Sympathy, gets the guy off the stage during Under My Thumb.

1) The Stones were there to put on a show. Jagger was there to grin and dance.

2) It isn't always clear if the footage where nobody is singing or talking necessarily goes along with the music. That is, sometimes there's a cut from one camera to another, and one would presume that's all continuous, but it's possible that the two shots were recorded at different times in the show, either because of necessity or just in an attempt to make a more interesting film.