When Library of Congress film expert Mike Mashon heard about newly found reels of Rolling Stones concert footage, he thought they were copies from a show the band did in London in 1969. But when the silent, color film was sent to be digitized, his technicians contacted him, and said, “You gotta come see this,” he said. The footage was not from the London concert that July. It was from the notorious show five months later at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, where one fan was killed, three others died and, many believe, the social revolution of the 1960s began its end. “Every once in a while in a film archive you get this thrill of discovery,” Mashon said. The films have never been publicly seen before, he said. The free concert on Dec. 6, 1969, featured other rock superstars such as Santana, the Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The Grateful Dead were supposed to play, but backed out when they heard about the violence. The show drew about 300,000 people, and lots of drugs and alcohol. Crowd control was handled by the Hells Angels motorcycle gang — a “constant and menacing presence” in the footage, Mashon said. Fights quickly broke out. Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger was punched in the face shortly after he arrived. The Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin was slugged and knocked out. Members of the Hells Angels beat concertgoers with pool cues. And an African American teenager who pulled a gun during a melee was stabbed to death. “Gimme Shelter,” a famous 1970 documentary made by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, captured much of the chaos. But none of the newly discovered film appears in that documentary, said Mashon, head of the library’s moving image section at its campus in Culpeper, Va. “I don’t think there’s really anything in the film that adds to our understanding of the tragic events of Altamont,” he said. “But it’s definitely a new perspective …[and] a wonderful artifact to have of a time and place and an event.” The footage, which shows hints of the mayhem, was discovered in February 2020, right before the coronavirus pandemic broke out in the United States, Mashon said. He unveiled the find in a library blog post on Tuesday. “We genuinely think that this is what we call an orphan film,” he said. “If an owner emerges, certainly we’d be interested in hearing that. Somebody with proof. But as far as we know this film was abandoned.” “If we had been able to track down a name we would have pursued that,” he said. “But there were no clues, and the fate of the person behind the camera that day is unknown.” The 8mm film is on two reels, probably shot with a home movie camera by someone onstage. The footage is 26 minutes long. Whoever shot it later took it to be developed and never picked it up, Mashon said. The first reel, filmed during the day, features Santana, the Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and the Flying Burrito Brothers. There are close-ups of key members of those bands, and Jagger and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards can be seen watching in the background. At one point the Hells Angels shove an intoxicated-looking bystander off the stage. There are shots of the vast crowd, and of fans dancing wildly to the music. The second reel, shot at night, features the Rolling Stones. The film quality is poor. Jagger is seen as he performs in semidarkness. (He tried in vain to calm the crowd during the fighting in front of the stage.) Other members of the band appear in the shadows. Light glints off drummer Charlie Watts’s cymbals. Men in Hells Angels jackets mill about the stage. A man in the background looks overcome by the music, or by something else, as he runs his fingers through his hair. The camera pans across some worried-looking fans in front of the stage. Not much else is clear. The reel doesn’t capture the stabbing of 18-year-old Meredith Hunter Jr., which happened just off camera and is glimpsed in “Gimme Shelter.” (The concert’s other deaths reportedly were those of one fan who drowned in an irrigation canal and two others who were run over by a car.) After the show, the footage was apparently taken to be developed at a company called Palmer Films in San Francisco. It was never picked up. “Why … I don’t know,” Mashon said. When that firm was going out of business in the 1990s, noted film archivist and scholar Rick Prelinger acquired a huge batch of its reels for his collection. In 2002, the Library of Congress acquired more than 200,000 reels from Prelinger, Mashon said. Experts are still sifting through them. When the new reels turned up in February, 2020, they had been labeled “Stones in the Park.” Mashon said he thought they might be copies of the 1969 TV film called “The Stones in the Park,” about the band’s outdoor show in London on July 5, 1969. Instead, they were about Altamont. “I have a feeling that this film is going to show up in future rock-and-roll documentaries,” he said. “It’s too good. It really is some high-class footage. Whoever shot it did a great job.”
Yes..where I found out about this newly discovered footage ..free subscription to Washington post because of my Amazon account.
The entire Stones performance was filmed by Albert Maysles. He wanted to release it, but there were copyright issues.
From my reading of music mags then I believe if remember correctly …the altamont violent event tarnished the rep of the stones then but their soon subsequent releases were so good they got past this.
I work with q few guys who were 19 at the time. They said to them, the idea of knowing about something like this when it happened, or even q month or two afterwards, was basically unheard of in those days.
Unaware of Crosby, Stills , Nash and Yong performing at Altamont/ I was like woah is that Neal Young???? Amazing footage of Grahm Parsons in sports bra too. What a time to be alive.
It's very unlikely footage exists for the entire Stones set. Note Zwerin said "tapes" and that she *heard* Gimme Shelter. As the film's editor, she likely would have seen any available footage through her work, and wouldn't have been *sent* anything by the Maysles. There's no doubt more footage exists, or at least did exist, but it's unlikely that the entire set exists.
I guess...most people just like seeing him alive (including me) after all the BS he put his body and soul through...a very fortunate man to say the least..actually incredible...just cements my gene pool theory...
The first half of the footage is interesting, by the time the Stones are on stage though the lighting is pretty hopeless. I have to admit I kept looking for a black guy in a bright green suit near the front sometimes. Nice to see more of Santana and the Burritos in particular.
Aside from the unfortunate drug induced drama associated with that show, looks like a hell of a bill that I was unaware of. All I knew of was Stones, Plane and some dude messing around with a Moog IIIP.
Doug McKechnie. Set the tone for the festival in a strange dark way, like a precursor of the Seastones sets from Grateful Dead shows.
No, at a Q&A session in 2008, prior to his death, Albert Maysles stated that he had the entire set filmed and was still hopeful that it would be released at some point. He also screened some outtakes including Midnight Rambler. He also stated that he had filmed all bands that day.
I just don't imagine anyone giving a particularly great performance under the conditions that day, but perhaps the Burritos as they say there weren't any 'incidents' while they were on? It's a bit like wanting that Who show in Cincinnati with the festival seating... some things are just... tainted, but add in actual interruptions, can't see wanting much of it from that day at all.
the comments under the Library Of Congress article are a good read, this one in particular stood out M.Moore January 7, 2022 at 4:28 am I was shooting at dead center of the front of the stage that whole day… I have stills of these groups taken from stage level.. I am also in the Maysles’ film…to the point… this was shot by a pro…. quite possible George Lucas who was there shooting that day… this was well before his features came out… and this footage has been edited… somewhere there is original 16mm (probably sync) footage of this… I see where Palmer’s offices were at 611 Howard St… that is not far from where Francis Coppola had his studio… and Lucas worked out of there…
Wow this footage is amazing. I read the Post article too and when I was 14/15/16 I was making 8mm films with my friends and we used to use Palmer Labs in S.F. where this film came from. I was about half way back and couldn’t see a thing but heard the music. It was a bizarre scene especially for me who was 15 at the time. I had seen the Stones just a couple months earlier at the Oakland Coliseum which was fabulous. Altamont was not, it was hard to get to, hard to leave and really not much fun, however it was such a huge event; something I had never experienced. I was actually more interested in the Airplane and the Dead but obviously the Dead didn’t play. I had seen them both play together in Golden Gate Park at the Polo Fields the previous summer. The Airplane were amongst my favorite bands, and they were the best live for a two or three year period around this time. This concert that became Altamont was originally supposed to be in GG Park. Too bad it didn’t happen there. Read the Joel Selvin book. It’s the best about all this.
You rarely see photos from the top of the audience to the stage.....incredible amount of people there!!!
Yes the person behind the camera knew what he was doing, and was a VIP. Perhaps he can be spotted in Gimme Shelter, maybe during the Airplane footage.
I wonder if this is the first use of a big Moog live at a concert ? Who's playing it ? Is this the machine that will be bought by Klaus Shulze a few years later ?
