Gimme Shelter/Altamont

In December of 1969 the Rollings Stones put on a free concert at Altamont Speedway in Tracy California. Amongst the opening acts were Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, and Santana.  The Hell's Angels were in charge of the security for the concert but didn't do a very good job of it.  when Jefferson Airplane took the stage fighting broke out in the crowd, and Marty Balin was knocked out by a Hell's Angel. When the Flying Burrito Brothers were singing Six Days On The Road, Gram Parsons had to tell the crowd to stop fighting. Once the Stones started playing, the mood of the audience didn't change.  Mick couldn't even get through a song without having to stop and tell the audience to cool it. You could tell he was really pissed off.  The Altamont concert just proved to be a disaster especially after an 18 year old in the audience was stabbed to death by a Hell's Angel.  Anyway you can see all of this on the documentary film Gimme Shelter.  I was not much of a Rolling Stones fan before I watched this film. I only heard a couple of their songs, but after watching it, the Rolling Stones became my favorite band and still are.  So if you haven't seen Gimme Shelter I definitely recommend watching it.

 

photos-Robert Altman, William L.Rukeyster, Ethan Russell

" By the time we got to woodstock we were half a million strong and everywhere was song and celebration"

Woodstock was a music festival that took place on Max Yagurs farm in Bethel New York on August 15th to the 18th in 1969. 32 acts performed in front of a crowd of 500,000 hippies dressed in maxi skirts, sun dresses and tie dyed shirts. If you've seen the movie there were even a couple of nuns in the crowd. Performers include Ritchie Havens, Canned Heat, The Who, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Santana, Sha Na Na, Sly & The Family Stone, John Sebastian, Arlo Gutrie, and Country Joe & The Fish. My favorite performances are when The who took the stage with Rodger Daltrey dressed it his fringe vest, swinging the mike singing See Me Feel Me. I also Loved hearing Joe Cocker sing With A Little Help From My Friends. He really nailed that number, I think I like his version better than the Beatles. But Woodstock was not just peace and love, there were three deaths, bad weather, and food shortages and of course lots of mud. It was assured to the town officials that there would be no more than 50,000 attendees, in fact so many people were arriving in large numbers that festival was for free. Most of the acts that were invited, but refused, of course regretted it after learning how big Woodstock really was.

photos-Henry Diltz, Rowland Scherman, Lisa Law, flickr