I've compared the Maysles Brothers footage in Gimme Shelter with the newly discovered 8 mm footage, and the two camerapersons were within feet of each other, at least during the Jefferson Airplane set. It's not George Lucas footage; he was at the back of the crowd on the hill with a long lens. Carlos Santana and the Santana bassist were using different instruments than they used at Woodstock. Paul Kantner and Jack Casady were playing the same instruments they used at Woodstock.
Casady used different basses… The “Yggdrasil” bass was used at Woodstock : The bass was stolen shortly afterwards & replaced by this sunburst bass with hastily added Alembic electronics… This was the bass Jack used at Altamont…
I stand corrected on Jack's bass @shadowcurtain I couldn't get a clear angle and I was going by the f holes! That's what I get for cutting corners!
I'm not really sure its even 8 mm, the colors actually look better than the Maysles footage, at least during the daytime shots. I actually like the mystery camera person's style better than Maysles, he or she got a lot of closeups of the musicians' fretboards and fingers, which is uncommon because every seems to focus on the singer's face.
The Chaos of Altamont and the Murder of Meredith Hunter The mystery cameraman is in the lower right corner of the first picture in this New Yorker article right behind the person holding the single lens reflex 35mm camera.
Good eye. I read the article as I scrolled through. Still trying to figure out what murder the writer is talking about since there wasn't one. This is an interesting take from the article... A few weeks after the concert, Rolling Stone published an exhaustive report titled “The Rolling Stones Disaster at Altamont: Let It Bleed.” The piece opens with an account from a witness who later testified at Passaro’s trial. An unidentified Angel, the witness said, “reached over and grabbed the guy beside me”—Hunter, that is—“by the ear and hair, and yanked on it, thinking it was funny, you know, kind of laughing. And so, this guy shook loose; he yanked away from him.” Another Angel “hit him in the mouth,” the witness went on, and Hunter tried to run, “and four other Hell’s Angels jumped on him.” According to the witness, after Passaro stabbed Hunter in the back, Hunter “pulled out a gun and held it up in the air you know . . . like that was kind of his last resort.” The film shows he's clearly waving the gun before getting stabbed in the back of the neck. After somehow miraculously winning the 6 on 1 fight. I wonder if video footage was shown in court to discount this witness. Has anyone ever seen a cohesive account of the actual trial? I have not ever come across anything of the sort, not even close. All I've found are sensationalistic writings for newspapers and magazines that are awful light on facts. Let's not pretend this killing isn't the reason we all know the word Altamont like our own middle names.
i collect my favourite performers of woodstock69/isle of wight 70/monterey pop 67 for a while i was looking at any other huge historic festival i could collect...i forgot about altamont! id love to get the santana/airplane/csny/tina turner/stones sets! i checked whats available on vinyl.....just a couple of bootlegs of the stones set but no one else i wonder why this concert wasnt heavily bootlegged?
I wonder too. Maybe because of liability reasons band management and record companies managed to truly keep things under lock and key for once? On top of everything else, hospital bills, the Stones supposed $5 million liability insurance policy that I don't think anyone got their hands on, almost $1 million in lawsuits from area ranchers aimed at everybody who presumably had any money, county government investigations into the lack of law enforcement and on and on. I'm sure I read somewhere that there was a second Meredith Hunter trial in the 80s or maybe even 90s. It was a trial saying his civil rights were violated either by Passaro who stabbed him or the Angels as a whole. Passaro drowned in like 1985 under kinda sorta weird circumstances according to the police but I don't think there was any big investigation. I'm thinking the second trial was at the Angel's as a whole because collectively they'd have had a lot of money by then, especially if it was in the 90s.
Maybe the tapes of the other bands just didn't get out. I remember there were some prominent CSNY boots in the early 70's, saw one at a store not long ago.
I wonder if one exists; the audio of Six Days on the Road was a studio version dubbed in and very different form the audience tape.
There's also a guy in roughly the same spot with what appears to be an 8mm camera clapping 30 seconds into this clip. It's a wind-up camera with a lens turret that might be a Keystone K-27.
There are several bootlegs that have The Stones set and opening acts. They are audience tapes and other than the Stones set I am not sure the other bands set are complete. The Stones set is a mix of audience and soundboard tracks. https://u5q4u9i6.stackpathcdn.com/w...7/03/rollingst-altamont-free-40th2.jpg?x63334 https://cdmuseumpb.ocnk.net/product/203#&gid=1&pid=2 These are just pics of the CD artwork and not where you can buy these bootlegs
From what I understand Lucas was very far away from the stage and none of his footage was used in the film. I think his camera got jammed and he was having lens problems.
I had wandered away from a place on the hill on the right side near the buses you see inother footage to pee during the Burritos short set and ended up way in the back. Even from there, it seemed clear to me Gram was on acid. He had a real "Oh wow..." aura going. And it is true there didn't seem to be any problems while they played. Otherwise, it was pretty easy to see what was going on by the stage because I was sitting on the hill looking down on it. Seeing Marty Balin get punched out early on was a total mind-blower. It is hard to overestimate the Airplane's importance at the time and to have the guy who really did get things started back in 1965, an exalted kingpin of the scene, get treated like that was beyond shocking. In retrospect, the hopes and dreams of the 60's ended right then and there for me. And every violent incident the rest of the day rippled through the crowd from the stage area like a stone tossed in a lake. That is a nice image, though, and this was more like vomit spreading, so scary and sad. It was just an awful day.
Was always intrigued by the spastic "dancing" of the African American gentleman who appears during the Airplane set in the original documentary. Glad more footage of him surfaced at about 3:20 into the new footage.
