Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day

by Joel Selvin

In this breathtaking cultural history filled with exclusive, never-before-revealed details, celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont concert, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s.

In the annals of rock history, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on December 6, 1969, has long been seen as the distorted twin of Woodstock—the day that shattered the Sixties’ promise of peace and love when a concertgoer was killed by a member of the Hells Angels, the notorious biker club acting as security. While most people know of the events from the film Gimme Shelter, the whole story has remained buried in varied accounts, rumor, and myth—until now.

Altamont explores rock’s darkest day, a fiasco that began well before the climactic death of Meredith Hunter and continued beyond that infamous December night. Joel Selvin probes every aspect of the show—from the Stones’ hastily planned tour preceding the concert to the bad acid that swept through the audience to other deaths that also occurred that evening—to capture the full scope of the tragedy and its aftermath. He also provides an in-depth look at the Grateful Dead’s role in the events leading to Altamont, examining the band’s behind-the-scenes presence in both arranging the show and hiring the Hells Angels as security.

The product of twenty years of exhaustive research and dozens of interviews with many key players, including medical staff, Hells Angels members, the stage crew, and the musicians who were there, and featuring sixteen pages of color photos, Altamont is the ultimate account of the final event in rock’s formative and most turbulent decade.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Audiobook, Crime, Cultural

358 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 15, 2016

About the author

San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin started covering rock shows for the paper shortly after the end of the Civil War. His writing has appeared in a surprising number of other publications that you would think should have known better.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In a single day, the innocence of a generation was shattered. If Woodstock had been rock's Promised Land, Altamont was its Hell. The sunny tribalism of Yasgur's farm had been supplanted by an evil, dark ceremony complete with blood sacrifice. For the rock & roll generation, Altamont proved to be a pivotal point, lodged in the popular imagination as the day the 60's died." -- page 308

The Rolling Stones - who had not toured the U.S. since 1966 - were originally going to stage a multi-act all-day free concert a la Woodstock (although that legendary show wasn't really intended as a 'free' event) but host it on the west coast, preferably in the San Francisco region with its burgeoning music scene, in the late autumn of 1969. Golden Gate Park did not pan out as a site, but a hastily conceived third-string option was the Altamont Speedway (which, despite its grand-sounding name, was really just a rural outpost of a track used for demolition derbies) about an hour's drive away. Oh, and the local Hell's Angels outlaw motorcycle gang was hired to perform security . . . for $500 worth of beer. I should also mention that some very bad doses of acid were making the rounds within the 200,000+ attendees, resulting in a drowning and two fatalities stemming from an inebriated hit-and-run driver. And THEN there was an actual murder in front of the stage during the Stones' set . . .

Selvin's Altamont was an outstandingly detailed examination / explanation of what transpired and, obviously, what went disastrously wrong on that afternoon / evening of December 6, 1969. There were a certainly a large cast of characters involved - not just the Stones, but co-starring acts like the Grateful Dead (it was their recommendation to bring in the Hell's Angels, based on prior positive experiences), Jefferson Airplane (vocalist Marty Balin was TWICE knocked unconscious by Angels members), Santana, the Flying Burrito Brothers PLUS the various executive / production / support staff, and the requisite hangers-on or fame leeches who disappeared like thieves in the night - yet the author amazingly does not let anyone get lost in the shuffle, or escape some fraction of blame for the fiasco. For a dark and somewhat depressing story, this was one riveting and illuminating read.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the 1960s the music scene was changing and the likes of Paul Anka, Bobby Rydell, and Bobby Vinton were fading in favor of a new kind of music.....psychedelic rock. Rising out of the drug culture of San Francisco, bands such as The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Jefferson Airplane, were gaining attention. Free outdoor concerts were becoming the norm, culminating with the iconic Woodstock. It was all flower power, love, and peace........ but then came Altamont, which the author calls "rock's darkest day".

The Rolling Stones had not been on a US tour for a couple of years and decided, due to financial troubles, to return for a country wide tour to boost their popularity. They had no intention of doing a free concert until management convinced them that it was a good idea. Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, along with some very shady characters who had no idea what they were doing, were given the responsibility of arranging the concert in San Francisco. And so began the fiasco of Altamont.

Unable to get permission from city government to use San Francisco as a venue, the concert was eventually moved to a rundown speedway several miles from the city which was a totally inappropriate place, to say the least. The crowning blow was the use of the Hell's Angels, the notorious biker gang, to provide "security".

The author, who had covered the rock scene for years, provides the reader with the fascinating and frank details of the preparation for the concert, the people involved, and the tragic outcome. It is almost beyond comprehension as he reveals the total incompetence and violence of those responsible.

I highly recommend this book.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

My gas tank is empty and I and don't have the energy to write the year-end reading summary that I thought it might be a good idea to attempt for once, but Joel Selvin's Altamont was at least an appropriate book for me to finish the year on. For one thing, it brought me back full circle to the 60s and Ken Kesey- not that he's a major figure in this narrative, but you can't write about the Angels without at least mentioning Kesey's notorious party in La Honda. Secondly, now that I've reflected on it a bit, I've identified a running theme in my reading this past year, which the story of Altamont fits into perfectly.

Almost every piece of fiction or nonfiction I read in 2021 involved either fictional characters or real people setting out on some kind of journey. Maybe for fun (the concert-goers at Altamont, the expat backpackers in Alex Garland's surprisingly excellent The Beach), maybe for a physical challenge/spiritual experience (Into Thin Air, Dead Mountain, Forever on the Mountain...yes, a lot of books about fatal encounters with mountains this year), creative inspiration (Death in Venice), or maybe just for a good story to report on (Artyom Borovik's The Hidden War), but really, none of these motivations are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the people (I'll just call them people from here on out, fictional and non-) I read about almost always ended up in mortal danger, a danger that some of them secretly coveted (this aspect was especially pronounced in Thomas Mann). Whether it was the myth of Woodstock, a rumored island paradise in southeast Asia, the prospect of summiting Everest without loss of life, a vision of a Russia that would be both socialist and democratic, or even just a safe-deposit box containing hundreds of thousands of dollars, they all seemed to be chasing things that weren't really there...losing their sense of romance and idealism as they realized their mistakes, if they ever did. They all might as well have been saying something like, "Please, Sister Morphine, turn my nightmare into dreams."

What is the deal with Venice, by the way? First (at least in the order that I experienced them) there was Don't Look Now, the movie as well as the short story, then Mann's Death in Venice, then that Paul Schrader flick with Christopher Walken and his creepy sex apartment, in which good old Chris lures the young couple vacationing in Venice ever deeper into his world of, well, how else to put it, creepy sex. Why is it that every literary character nurturing a repressed lust for creepy death seems to make a beeline for Venice? Just curious.

Ahem. Even the books that initially seemed like outliers turned out upon further thought to share my yearlong theme, at least to a degree. In the Herzog documentary that inspired me to read Gorbachev's biography, Herzog asks Gorbachev what words he would like on his tombstone. Gorbachev answers, "we tried." Orwell's Homage to Catalonia would have fit perfectly with the theme, in fact it so perfectly exemplifies it that I might have noticed the theme even before I sat down to reflect on my year in reading; but Homage is one of my favorite books and I've already read it twice. Instead, I got around in September to one of Orwell's few nonfiction books that I hadn't yet read, The Road to Wigan Pier. The first half of the book is good, but it's really the second part, made up of one multi-part essay, that has stayed with me. Writing for a socialist and socialist-leaning audience in the late 30s, Orwell skips the part about trying to convince people that a socialist government is the only hope for ordinary human beings against the rising tide of totalitarianism, and instead asks his socialist-inclined readers why so many people seem to, uh...dislike them, and dislike what they perceive socialism to be all about. Whatever your own beliefs, there's a lot to take away from listening to Orwell try to keep an idea that he thought was supposed to be about common decency and working-class unity from turning into an exercise in policing language and heresey-hunting:

I get the impression that, to orthodox Marxists, the whole Socialist movement is no more than an exciting heresy-hunt- a leaping to and fro of frenzied witchdoctors to the beat of tom-toms and the tune of "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a right-wing deviationist!" It is because of this kind of thing that it is so much easier to feel yourself a Socialist when you are among working-class people. The working-class Socialist, like the working-class Catholic, is weak on doctrine and can hardly open his mouth without uttering a heresy, but he has the heart of the matter in him...

In that sense, we should all be heretics.

It was a strange year in reading for me. But then, I started it with what I guess was the fairly strange goal of reading less- or if not necessarily less, then at least fewer books. Fewer and better. I succeeded, too, at least about the former part, following up my personal-record-setting total for 2020 (64) with my lowest number since the doomed year of 2014. I finished with 26 this time, a number that includes a friend's screenplay, a 1975 interview with Hunter S. Thompson from Playboy magazine that was released in the form of a book, and The Mothman Prophecies, which I still suspect of not being a book, but rather an elaborate joke that someone has played on me. There was also Death in Venice, which is a novella, and two Charles Williams crime/noir novels that were so easy and fun to read that they probably shouldn't count, either. So the real number might be more like 20. In any case, I initially settled on the goal of reading less because I felt that my reading had become mechanical, and that I was more focused on checking off titles than in engaging with whatever book I was reading. It also occurred to me that of all the aspects of my life that needed improvement, one problem I've never really had is the problem of not reading enough. I can afford a down year in that department while I focus on other things, was how my thinking went at the time. Therefore, to really put myself behind the eight-ball, and to prevent myself from even dreaming of eclipsing the number 64 (but also to further my goal of reading books that were of better quality), I front-loaded my year with two big novels that I knew would take some time, Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion (January-February) and Mann's The Magic Mountain (March-April). Sometimes... was probably my favorite novel that I've read in the last two or three years. Perfect? Not at all, but for some reason that made me like it even more. It hit me emotionally in a way that very few books have. About The Magic Mountain, and Mann's writing in general, I still feel somewhat ambivalent. Respectful, sure, but not very moved. Still, these two novels seemed to complement each other perfectly. Kesey's is messy, working-class, rich in dialogue, weather, sense of place, the reality of labor, and all the details of the physical world. Mann's is extremely controlled, highbrow, and cerebral to the point that the physical world barely seems to exist. You can imagine SAGN shaking TMM's hand, and TMM getting out a bottle of hand sanitizer afterwards, objecting the while to SAGN's use of coarse language. But they are both novels about young people arriving in new places, intending to stay only temporarily, but then slowly being drawn into these hermetic worlds, changing them and being changed. Ken Kesey also has one of his characters throw a copy of The Magic Mountain out the window of a moving Greyhound bus.

So my year in reading started out with a lot of promise. But as a wise person once said, you begin a year drinking eight cups of water a day, dieting and reading Thomas Mann. You end the same year drinking Red Mountain wine and watching movies with titles like Nude for Satan and Final Twitch of the Death Nerve. But at least we get to try again.

After the Kesey-Mann one-two punch, I lost a sense of direction with my reading. I started working more, tried to focus on my own writing, dedicated more mornings to running, began physical therapy for a health problem that's bothered me for years, and even when I did read, I felt listless. It was also around this time, post-Kesey/Mann, that I had to start teaching a class remotely, which compelled me to get a Smartphone for the first time in my life (my normal Internet was too slow, and my students had to put up with a few classes with my screen freezing up every two minutes, which was untenable). I had up until that point heroically resisted the societal pressure to get one- some people would even get kind of hostile when they saw my flip-phone, as if they considered me a sort of heretic in our brave new world- but I finally didn't have much of a choice. Since getting it in May, the Smartphone that is, my reading has dropped off precipitously. It would be nice to think that was just a coincidence, but I guess that's the kind of thing we will all have to learn to tell ourselves, so we don't feel too much nagging discomfort as we lose time and slip fitfully into the flickering fucking metaverse.

But where was I. Oh, right, Altamont. Well, what can I say, this book is great. The documentary Gimme Shelter is riveting in its own way, and I'm glad that it exists, but a concomitant of its visceral power is that it's pretty short on exposition, and all the fascinating details Selvin puts together in this book (not just about the day of the concert but about the whole Bay Area milieu, and the relationship the bands and the hippies had with the Angels, and the way all that was impacted by the desire of the world-famous Rolling Stones to hold a free concert in California that migrated from an idea in Golden Gate Park to the reality of the desolate Altamont Speedway) gave me a much clearer and fuller picture of what went down that day. As for what it all meant, we have to work that out for ourselves. Selvin tries to tell us at the end, sort of, and as my pal Evan wrote, I think that's the one place in the book where he missteps.

It's a footnote in the narrative, but it stood out to me that, early on the day of the concert, someone tried to play a Moog synthesizer over the sound-system, at that point "one of the very few in existence." Wikipedia claims that the first Moog was created in 1964 by American engineer Robert Moog, but I think it was actually created by beings from another galaxy. Wikipedia also says that plenty of popular groups from the Doors to the Stones occasionally made use of a Moog, but it's an integral part of the sound of ambient artists like Tangerine Dream, who beginning in the 70s made some of my favorite music ever. For at least the last decade, I've been listening to their albums- Phaedra, Zeit, Stratosfear and Green Desert,, especially, though also the solo albums by Michael Hoenig and Edgar Froese- while reading, writing, and taking walks. Not while running. Then it's time for Maiden, Priest and Sabbath. But for any contemplative activity, the TD albums are the absolute best. I doubt a few minutes of the Moog's hypnotic soundscapes echoing through the Altamont Pass would have changed anything that happened on December 6th, 1969, but it is kind of nice to imagine the 17-minute title track from Phaedra, for example, emanating its otherworldly hum from huge speakers at the front of the stage, and all the people on bad acid trips suddenly being able to relax and count blades of grass.

In any case, Happy New Year to anyone who has indulged me this far. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes...

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Subtitled, “The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day,” this is an incredibly well written account of the Rolling Stones 1969 tour of America and, arguably, one of the best music history books that I have read. It begins with Rock Scully, manager of the Grateful Dead, landing at Heathrow and being arrested on drugs charges. Finally released, he met up with the Rolling Stones, who, at the end of the Sixties, were not in a good place. The band were effectively broke; their finances controlled by Allen Klein (the man who damaged both the Stones and the Beatles, when John Lennon was seduced by the manager, despite Jagger’s warnings). Mick Jagger approached Prince Rupert Loewenstein, an aristocratic Austrian banker, who suggested they set up a touring operation, separate from Klein. Tours could be financed from cash advances from American promoters, giving the band members a much needed method of making money that Klein was not involved in.

A lot had changed since the Stones had last toured the States. There were no longer screaming hordes of teenage girls. Rock music had grown up and was appealing to adult audiences and, by 1969, the centre of the rock universe was San Francisco. Meanwhile, Rock Scully returned to the Grateful Dead after his visit to London and suggested the Dead and the Stones appear at a free concert. Desperate to make some money, the Stones embarked on their tour, with the promise of a free concert held out to confront criticisms of expensive ticket prices. However, before long, the tour was out of control, with too many people trying to take control, a lack of organisation and no venue for the free concert finalised.

With time running out, Altamont was decided on as the place where the free concert would be held. It was a desolate, remote location, but it was too late to turn back. Moving the concert away from San Francisco almost meant it changed the jurisdiction among the Hells Angels. Scully had suggested the San Francisco Hells Angels could provide security for the Stones, as they, ‘played nice’ with the hippies. However, away from San Francisco; off their home turf, they were an unknown entity.

If this book tells you anything, it is that festivals and concerts need a lot of organisation. Riding the Woodstock feeling that huge crowds could get together in peace and harmony, those organising the tour totally underestimated the decision to rush ahead and simply put on a concert in a totally unsuitable location. Once word got out the Stones were playing, a huge crowd built up and yet the stage, put up quickly and without thought, was only four feet tall. If you have seen any footage of the concert – and it was filmed by the Maysles Brothers, who had captured the Beatles first US tour – you will see that the stage area was chaotic and crowded, with the band literally level with the audience. There was no natural defensive barrier between the musicians and the crowd and, laughably, only a piece of string to mark the point the crowd were not supposed to cross.

This book tells the full story of how the Stones came to Altamont. Of how violence had already exploded when earlier bands had taken to the stage, while Mick Jagger was punched in the face literally minutes after arriving. Crowds on the hill were unaware of the chaotic scene near the stage, while there were over two hours between Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young finishing their set and the Stones appearing. Meanwhile, the temperature dropped, there was nowhere to buy food or drink, the crowd became bored and restless and, combined with the violent Hells Angels and the appearance of bad acid and alcohol, made for a very dangerous and dark atmosphere. Infamously, as the Stones played, “Under my Thumb,” a young man, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed to death in front of the stage.

Ironically, despite the difficult conditions, and unaware of the murder until after the concert, the Stones had never played better. However, the aftermath of that tour was shock, debts, lawsuits, accusations, blame and a murder victim.. Some called it the death of the Sixties, but it resulted in an actual death and a murder trial, when a young, black man lay dead and the member of an all-white motorcycle gang stood trial for murder. Joel Selvin does a wonderful job of bringing these events to life and of telling the story of everyone involved with sympathy and compassion. If you have any interest in rock music, then this is a must read.

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb account of the events leading up to Altamont, and the aftermath

Before I read this book all I knew about Altamont was gleaned from the Gimme Shelter film and a few magazine articles. Joel Selvin recognised that the accepted narrative was far too simplistic and so he wrote 'Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day' to delve deeper, and set the record straight.

It's superb.

A forensic examination of all the key players, and the events that led up to what must surely be the most nightmarish musical event of all time. A perfect storm of hubris, opportunism, naivety and toxic drugs that resulted in four deaths, and a life changing experience for many of the audience and the artists that participated.

It starts uncertainly, as Joel Selvin is far less authoritative on the London scene but once the Rolling Stones arrive Stateside for their 1969 US tour, that culminated with the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on December 6, 1969, it really clicks into gear. An essential read for anyone interested in The Rolling Stones, or the late 1960s counter-culture more generally.

5/5

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hell Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day by Joel Selvin is a 2016 Dey Street Books publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.


Growing up, I was always fascinated by the sixties decade. So many changes took place in that ten years, so much of it sad and dark, but the music scene was absolutely dynamic and even now, all these years later, the music is a mainstay, still purchased, downloaded, streamed, and listened to every single day. The Rolling Stones went on to become iconic, still playing live shows and creating new music, and still widely respected.

But, in 1969, the band was in trouble. They had recently lost Brian Jones, a founding member of the group, and were nearly flat broke. They needed a cash infusion desperately, so a tour of America was hastily put together.

However, the band was harshly criticized for the price of the concert tickets, with many complaining they could not afford to attend the shows. (Unlike today, musicians were not supposed to appear to be business minded, and many felt the music should be very affordable, or free. The music was first, the money secondary, but of course, that was hardly the case, in reality, except perhaps with The Grateful Dead, who preferred a low profile and actually encouraged bootlegging at their concerts. Otherwise, rock stars were absolutely in it for the money, but could not APPEAR to be, which is why the Stones came under fire, especially by the underground, the very people the Stones were hoping to impress.)

All of this led to the hatching of two ideas. One, make a film of the entire tour, something Filmways was willing to work on, and secondly, offer a free concert to end the tour with relish. The free concert idea was pitched to the Stones by Rock Scully, the manager for The Grateful Dead, and the hope was the free event would help soothe the criticism over ticket prices.

Coming off the epic Woodstock festival, the open air, outdoor concert was becoming very popular. Several such shows had taken place with little or no incident. However, Woodstock’s peace and love atmosphere, was largely a myth, although the counterculture claimed it as a victory, proving that an event of that magnitude, despite the conditions, worked just fine, without the heavy hand of the law or overzealous security guards. Many still believe Woodstock was a free concert, when in fact, tickets were sold to the event, but of course the venue was crashed, and ended up becoming the stuff legends are made of.

So, with the ‘success’ of Woodstock, and Monterey Pop, and other such venues, the Stones were hoping to finally become a part of that phenomenon, since they had missed out on all the fun up until now, and were hoping to not only maintain their rock star royalty status, but also be considered cool, by the counterculture.

So, this was the atmosphere leading up to what basically amounted to a massive cluster- ****.

The show was to take place in San Francisco, featuring the bands who were making waves in that area, such as ‘The Dead’, ‘Santana’, and ‘The Jefferson Airplane’. The show was slated to take place at San Jose State University, but when that fell through, Gold Gate Park was picked, and again those plans crumbled, so Sears Point Raceways was chosen, but negotiations broke down there too. So, with time running out, Altamont Motor Speedway was suggested as a possible venue, and organizers agreed to hold the concert there, but failed to notice all its limitations.


The rest is history, as they say, with picking Altamont as the location for the show being the first of many missteps.

The next big error in judgement was taking the ‘The Dead’s’ suggestion of using the Hell’s Angels as security. No one wanted the cops or traditional security guards, Jagger in particular being quite paranoid about a police presence. But, with having experienced issues regarding fans running onto the stage during shows, and the stage area at Altamont being quite low to the ground, some kind of security was deemed necessary. Gerry Garcia and the Dead were familiar with the members of the motorcycle club and had used their help on previous occasions, without any issues.

So, the Angels were hired for five hundred dollars of beer, to surround the stage area, and keep people away from the performers, and an eye on the equipment.


All these decisions, which were hasty and perhaps naïve, all culminated into one of the darkest days in rock history.


Many folks have seen the movie: ‘Gimme Shelter' which follows the Stones on their 1969 American tour, ending with the free concert and death of Meredith Hunter.

While this movie does depict, in vivid detail, the murder scene, and all that transpired that fateful day, it was also edited and toned down, and failed to completely capture the sinister atmosphere, fully.

In stark contrast, this book breaks down the behind the scenes buildup, the organization of the event, the behavior of the Angels, the crowd dynamic, the violence, the copious amounts of drugs consumed, the lack of facilities, food, and water, and first aid areas, and how the view from the hill gave many an entirely different opinion of what transpired that day compared to those who were surrounding the stage area.

Although I am well aware of how things ended up, reading about what was touted as “Woodstock West’, on December 6, 1969, was so intense, I decided it wasn’t the type of thing I wanted to read right before going to bed.

It was spooky how it all transpired with a kind of unstableness in the atmosphere right from the start, one that increased the uneasiness of the bands and the crowd as the day progressed with numerous altercations and outbursts of violence.

This book is very detailed and organized, touching on all aspects of the situation, not just how the concert came to be, how it was put together, the horrible decisions and even arrogance that lead to disaster and tragedy, but also detailed the aftermath of the event and how it basically shut down the hippie movement in one felled swoop, with the Manson murders putting the nail in the coffin.

Who got the blame? How did these events change the Stones and their music? Did anyone ever pay for the death of Meredith Hunter? Was Hunter aiming to kill Mick Jagger?

There were several other deaths that day, including a drowning, and a couple of fatal car accidents, as well as several births.

The fallout of this event reverberated through the rock community with ‘Rolling Stone Magazine’ stepping up to the plate, skewering everyone associated with the situation, and pulling no punches.

From that day forward things began to change in America, with the revolution basically coming to an end, with rock music becoming big business with corporate America, and peace and love fading into obscurity as the country moved into a new era, leaving all pretense of innocence behind, to be replaced by a need to put the turbulence behind them and return to having fun, dancing under mirror balls, unencumbered with the weight of war, violence, and rioting. The sixties generation woke up and realized their hopes for utopia were nothing but a pipe dream and it was time to face reality, grow-up, get an education, a job, and become productive citizens.

That wake up call, was due, at least in part to Altamont and the death of Meredith Hunter. This book chronicles the entire charade from start to finish, offering new insights into the mindset of the Stones, the attendees, the Angel’s, the divisions in the underground movement and the hippie community, and the country as a whole.

Even if you think you know all there is to know about this story, this book will take you back to this pivotal day in history, and will have you living it as though you were actually there. I even felt claustrophobic at times thinking about that wall of bodies shoved up against the stage and the sheer force a crowd of 300,000 people all stoned, drunk, or tripping on acid.

It’s actually a miracle things didn’t become much worse. I no longer find this era of time quite so fascinating. Instead, I feel a little embarrassed for those who find themselves immortalized on film and in photographs, dancing around naked, dirty, scruffy, stoned out of their heads, and generally making fools of themselves, acting like lunatics. Geez, I’d hate to think my parents, kids, or colleagues would ever see me looking that way or behaving in such a manner. However, to be fair, had I been of that age in the sixties, I probably would have been right there with them, at least to some degree.

However, this book is indeed a very shocking portrayal of a historic event that ended in tragedy and is absolutely riveting. This may be one of the best books I’ve ever read in regards to rock history. Many such books attempt to water down events and still try to sell the whole counterculture as romantic and nostalgic. This book throws cold water on all that and does so unapologetically, pointing the blame in more than one direction, but letting the facts speak for themselves.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn more about the sixties, the music scene of that era, the real true story of Altamont, the Stones, and all who were present on stage and behind the scenes, who ended up taking blame and who walked away without taking their fair share of it.

While many hard lessons were learned that day, there have still been several heartbreaking tragedies surrounding rock venues, from riots, to the crushing and trampling of bodies, to faulty stage equipment, pyrotechnics, over capacity crowds, to the onstage assassination of Dime Bag Darrell, many of which could have been prevented if the proper planning and safety precautions had been taken. But, Altamont was the first concert to have such a terrifying event take place.

This book is not for the faint of heart and pulls no punches, which garners my utmost respect for the author and the obvious amount of time and research put into this book.

4.5 stars

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selvin relates both the fascinating and dark history of the infamous free concert by the Rolling Stones and other bands at the Altamont Speedway in California on December 6th, 1969.
The book collects the whole start to finish timeline which began with the Grateful Dead and their manager dovetailing into The Rolling Stones venture trying to create their own Woodstock and failing miserably every step of the way from having the Hell's Angels doing security for $500 in beer payment to not having any police presence. Death, drugs, sex, and rock and roll are rampant in the book as Slevin details the whole sordid mess.
Selvin has quite a way with words putting the reader right there backstage with all the bands that played at Altamont and forcing one to watch the disaster unfold. A haunting remembrance of the end of the decade which produced arguably the best music ever made.

[Marti · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have seen Gimme Shelter at least ten times and read various accounts of the concert in books about the Rolling Stones. Although it was portrayed as a true horror show, this book by a veteran San Francisco insider sheds light on a lot of things that were whitewashed. According to Selvin, the true blame falls squarely on the Stones because they were the ones who wanted a free concert to end their film on a dramatic high.

It certainly seems there were those in their camp who recklessly moved the debacle forward, although it is hard to believe that if the band understood what they were getting into, they would have gone ahead with the concert. To me, the blame falls on John Jaymes, a shadowy underworld character in the Witness Protection Program who insinuated himself into the Stones' entourage with the promise of free cars and security at shows. It was he who interfered in the permit process with the city of San Francisco, causing the reactionary mayor to deny permission to play in Golden Gate Park (if he had left it to the "hippie" insiders who knew which palms to grease, it probably would have gone ahead as planned).

As it was, a suitable replacement venue (Sears Point) was found quickly. However, once preparations were underway, that too fell through over the owner's greedy demand for a portion of the film rights. It's true that Jagger made the decision not to back down, but he was relying on the opinions of others being an outsider in San Francisco. Ultimately it was Jaymes who signed the contract with the owner of the Altamont Speedway - just 36 hours before the concert was scheduled to begin. Thus, the race was on to dismantle and transport the monumental stage to a crumbling scrap heap in the middle of a remote mountain pass.

What follows is a truly harrowing account by eyewitnesses from both the audience, the crew and the bands (including those who were left out of the movie). As bad as the film made it seem, there were actually four people killed and many more injuries, both accidental and as a result of savage beatings with pool cues. It's no wonder because there was no food, water, or facilities for that many people other than what they brought with them. With 300,000 disgruntled people in the audience and only 40 Hell's Angels standing guard (and seemingly everyone on LSD) it is a miracle that the four-foot-high stage was not swamped.

I now need to watch Gimme Shelter again while all of this is fresh in my mind. If you think you know the whole story, you don't.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible read. This is one of the great books of music history. I am quite certain this will be one of my favorite non fiction books of 2016. There was a staggering amount of research done for this book and it shows. If you are at all interested in the sixties, music, or just well written history, or if you've seen the movie, read this book.

[Christopher Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

300,000 PEOPLE + DRUGS + BOOZE + GANGS: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

ALTAMONT has special meaning for me, since I live very close to Altamont. Of course, I've heard a lot about Woodstock, but very little about this "West Coast cousin" of Woodstock.

Much of the earlier part of ALTAMOUNT describes the decisions that led up to the concert. There were lots of frustrations trying to find a venue in San Francisco. Time was running short, so Altamont was a last-minute choice. The arrangements were hastily thrown together.

If nothing else, ALTAMONT is an example in how to NOT hold an outdoor rock festival. No planned medical, two local sheriff deputies, who themselves didn’t even know about the concert ahead of time. There was no professional security, and no medical--except a handful of doctors who happened to be available (who were mostly psychiatrists!)

Altamont was a violent disaster: “In a single day, the innocence of a generation was shattered. If Woodstock had been rock’s Promised Land, Altamont was its Hell." Many people were beaten by the impromptu "security team" of Hells Angels. “The Hells Angels were scary enough, but loaded on drugs and cheap red wine, they were all but uncontrollable.” One man was fatally knifed when he pulled out a gun. Beside the beatings, one man on drugs drowned in a canal, and two were killed in a hit-and-run (never solved.)

Adding to the mess was the lack of traffic preparation: “By ten o’clock in the morning, the CHP was reporting a ten-mile backup in either direction. They estimated the crowd at two hundred thousand and growing.” Serious problems started immediate. One crazed person decided to jump in a dangerous canal: “He looked at the officer across the water, flipped him off, and slid down the bank feet first into the canal. He stayed afloat only a few seconds before the icy torrent pulled him under. They picked him out of a filter trap a couple miles down the canal two hours later.”

ALTAMONT contains very few light moments. One of the less-violent scenes played out at the tiny Tracy airport where Crosby Stills, Nash, & Young flew in. There was no transportation, so naturally the group hot-wired a truck nearby: “Nobody was waiting when the helicopter carrying Crosby, Stills, and Nash & Young touched down at the Tracy airport… The entire airport was empty, except for a pickup truck parked in the corner of the lot. CSNY road manager Leo Makota started to hot-wire the truck… and David Crosby got behind the wheel.”

Unfortunately for CSNY, they were not safe, even on the stage: “A plastered Hells Angel sat on the side of the stage with a sharpened cycle spoke, and every time Stills stepped forward to sing, the Angel would stab him in the leg. By the end of the half-hour performance, streams of blood streaked his legs and soaked through his pants.”

Joel Selvin is critical of the Rolling Stones, as the real mover of the concert, and thus responsible for the violence. “When all the facts are presented, it’s hard to see true responsibility lying with anyone but the Rolling Stones. The simple truth is that Stones were always in charge of the concert, with Mick Jagger clearly making the calls behind the scenes.” Joel points out that the for-profit film, “Gimme Shelter” is hardly an objective narrative of the day, because “the Rolling Stones themselves were partners in the film’s production.”

The concert was so poorly arranged that it was difficult to hold any one person accountable for the fiasco: “The issue of affixing blame for the catastrophe confounded analysts. The organization and structure of the event was so shadowy, the chain of command so circuitous, and the work so improvised, nobody could ever tell who was in charge. When there is nobody in charge, nobody is at fault.”

One interesting outcome of the concert--Altamont put the Rolling Stone magazine into the spotlight. Immediately after the event, uninformed writers in major newspapers made little mention of the violence, painting the concert as a generally peaceful event. The Rolling Stone article corrected this misconception: “Not only did the Rolling Stone article completely reshape public opinion of the event, but it lifted the music magazine out of the underground and established Stone as a respected journalistic voice.” The article included graphic photos showing what actually happened. "The photos alone told the story in a graphic and vivid way that brought the violence of the day home to readers.”

All in all, I found ALTAMONT to be a fascinating book, which shed a lot of light on a crazy, sad day so many years ago. ALTAMONT is not a "fun" read in any way, but it's helpful to get the facts in the open.

Advance Review Copy courtesy of Edelweiss.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Angels had been placed in an untenable situation, serving as the lone bulwark between the crowd of three hundred thousand and the postage-stamp, ground-level stage. When men like the Angels feel fear, which they most certainly did, it translates into different responses than those of ordinary people. Fear is not part of their world. It must be defied through action. These are primitive beasts faced with a fight-or-flight dilemma, controlled by their amygdala. Flight would never be the answer. They were scared and on drugs. The audience was scared and on drugs. Nobody was rational. The hippies never expected this kind of violence from the Angels and had no idea what to do about it. The Angels, on the other hand, were quite aware that they were badly outnumbered and knew they could only hope to rule through intimidation."
-Altamont, Joel Selvin

An interesting and logical spin on what typically is presented to us as a simple narrative: that thugs were put in charge of law enforcement at the famous Altamont free rock concert in California late 1969, and that to the surprise of no one with a logical brain thugs acted like thugs at said rock concert. But would it have been much different if regular ole cops had been there instead? 2020 -- and all the evidence before and since gives us reason to question. That said, for many at the time and in that scene, it was not perfectly clear the Angels would act that way; the Angels had become a part of the cultural and musical scene at the time, ingratiating themselves into the circle of the Grateful Dead, with nary an incident to that point.

Joel Selvin has written a nearly perfect and amazingly detailed and exciting account at what happened in the making and commission of history's most famous rock-concert fiasco: an event that led to four deaths and countless injuries, at what was supposed to be a Woodstock West, a groovy love-in on the other coast; peace and lurv and music near the town that made said things famous: San Francisco.

In retrospect, memories, film and photos, including the Maysles famous film record of the event, Gimme Shelter lend credence to the notion that the flower children were led to the slaughter to an evil, scorched-Earth looking place in Central California that looked like the entrance to Hell at the start of the post-Apocalypse. Jerry Garcia in a rock documentary I saw on PBS in the mid-Nineties described Altamont, with its weird light and brown dust and sulfurous atmosphere as a bad-vibe place. At the time, his band, the Grateful Dead, were supposed to play the concert; indeed, they were instrumental in getting the thing off the ground with the Stones, but backed out when they saw what a bummer it was turning out to be.

And this leads us to the wayward, head-scratching, frustrating, and frankly downright angering conclusions that author Joel Selvin comes to at the end of this book that turned it from a perfect read that was on pace to net one of my rare Silver Holy Grail awards, to something much less -- vitriolic editorializing and apparent long-held grudgery and blame-gaming that leaves the, frankly, clueless, Rolling Stones holding the entire bag and the blame for the tragedy, and Selvin's saintly wimpy Grateful Dead somehow getting off scot-free. Based on everything presented in the book to that point, Altamont was clearly akin to World War I: there were plenty of parties to blame for the triggering of the cataclysm; it was all heedless and inevitable, the result of a lot of self-interested people with their own motives getting together to throw up an event in the heat of panic and with the speed of pressboard housing -- it was bound to collapse.

So yeah, I don't agree with the conclusions and will leave it at that, but those same assertions left a really bad taste and knocked this book down from a perfect five, to a pissed-off four stars. That said, I am recommending the history part of this book as highly as I can, and not recommending the misguided finale. Selvin snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with this one. Too bad.

KR@KY 2021

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. A combination of exhaustively researched, painstaking detail and occasional airing of personal grudges, held together with sloppy overwriting.

Selvin’s research of the events is ridiculously detailed, almost to the point of straining credulity—how much does he actually know about what certain minor characters were thinking when they got up that morning to go to Altamont?—but the range of background is what the story needs. I knew about the drowning but had no idea two people were killed inside the concert by a drugged driver. I’d always heard about “bad drugs” but was impressed to see someone talking about the many people given drinks spiked with speed as well as acid. The onstage-details during the concert and the ongoing violence throughout it are thorough and provide a very clear picture of events, while the description of the Stones’ talent onstage during the tragedy is a useful contrast I’d never heard before.

Unfortunately, the book’s narrative voice lacks discipline and reads like the I-told-you-so victory lap of a rock critic who’s been doing it for 46 years. The language is loose and far too adjective-heavy. Metaphors get mixed and tangled and no one seems in a hurry to clean this up ahead of going to press, so we get sentences like, “A great many bills came due that day, as the axioms of the Summer of Love were put to test and failed like a wet paper bag” or “Altamont was the coda. It was a stain that wouldn’t wash out of the fabric of the music.”

Selvin’s lingering contempt for 60s politicos emerges here and there with sudden expressions of disgust at scarcely described leftist wrongs he expects the reader to be on board with, which is annoying, but his real target is Mick Jagger and the Stones. Fair enough, but the problem is as he quotes Ralph Gleason saying, Altamont was so much bigger than one party’s fault. Trying to force the majority of the fault over into the Stones’ camp doesn’t work because the book effectively charts the many factors contributing to the ultimate chaos. Selvin criticizes Jagger (fairly) for staging Altamont to wrap the Stones’ tour up in a single forceful story that would be filmed and sold as a movie, but Selvin then moves toward the same simple blaming of the Stones to shape his book.

There are tiny errors throughout the book (Wallace Shawn was never the editor of the New Yorker, his father William Shawn was) that call into question the book’s broad ease with narrative facts. But Selvin’s narrative needs to prove Altamont broke something in the Stones, so much so that “as a unique and driving force in rock music, the band would no longer truly matter. [...] Whatever they lost at Altamont, they would never get back. The Stones would play out their days like tigers in the shade, challenging neither themselves nor the audience. Instead of a cultural force, the Stones settled for being caricatures i’d themselves, a raucous and colourful but ultimately meaningless side-show.”

This would be a throughly fair argument to make about the band in 1979, or even 1976. In order to make this argument about the Stones in 1970, Selvin has to argue that the only truly legendary songs on 1971’s Sticky Fingers were those recorded pre-Altamont in Muscle Shoals. That is a mighty stretch. But even more ridiculous is that Selvin sets himself up for having to imply that 1972’s Exile on Main Street was a minor album—rather than the epic double-record considered by many to be the Stones’ greatest work, and by some to be the greatest rock record of all time. You don’t have to agree with either conclusion (I’m firmly in camp Let It Bleed as my favourite Stones album) to recognize how facile and ridiculous Selvin’s simple framing of Altamont v. the Stones comes across.

[Zella Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read about the disastrous Altamont Concert of 1969.

Originally hailed as Woodstock West, Altamont was organized at the last moment--and organized badly. Lowlights included no provisions for what ended up being 300,000 attendees and the Hells Angels being hired (via beer) for security, which quickly degenerated into them assaulting concertgoers and musicians and being responsible for the stabbing murder of an attendee.

Altamont has largely been captured in pop culture via the documentary Gimme Shelter. Commissioned by the Rolling Stones before the concert, the movie largely deflects responsibility for the disaster off on the Hells Angels, and the popular perception of Altamont is that it was a nasty blow to the optimism of the 60s counterculture movement.

In his well-researched and well-written account of the concert, Selvin argues that basically everyone involved was responsible for the concert, especially the Rolling Stones, who were desperate to counter criticisms of their earlier tour that year through the States and to seem hip with the West Coast music scene while being woefully ignorant of the realities of the scene and quick to brush off warnings about how rushed and poorly thought out the concert was. He also argues that the concert really just exposed dark undercurrents that were present all along rather than representing some sudden death of an idealistic movement.

I think Selvin's account makes sense and is well argued. I knocked off a star because at times the narrative gets a bit repetitive in stating how ominous the concert was from the beginning--the anecdotes make that amply clear without it being hammered home so directly--but it's a vivid account of a very dark day in music history that perfectly captures the tension and chaos that erupted that day.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Standing on line at Stony Brook in 1976 for a Billy Joel concert. The show was general admission, and they were four hours past showtime but still had not let anyone in. A rumor of something started, and the press of the crowd lifted me off my feet and knocked the air out of me. I couldn't protest; I couldn't move; all I could do is hope that I didn't fall and get trampled to death. Of course, a couple of years later, 11 people died at a Who concert under very similar circumstances - trampled to death in the rush for general admission seating.

But that sort of thing doesn't live in legend like Altamont. No one captured a murder for a documentary at The Who show, or at other rock disasters. And Altamont also gets pride of place. It was first and popped the bubble on Woodstock and the remnants of the summer of love.

Instead, you have the Stones out to make a buck off a movie that caps their American tour. You have a complete SNAFU in terms of organization, which was pretty much created by the Stones taking control over the situation, but then not exercising any to that control. This led to the loss of two reasonable venues for the free show, and the unfortunate last minute choice of a venue with no reasonable stage, no facilities, and no security. You have a terrible mixture of alcohol and bad acid. And you have the Hells Angels acting as security before a crowd of thousands of people held back from the stage by no more than a piece of string. And the security cares more about their bikes than they do about people.

By the end of the day, one kid had drowned. Lots suffered from bad trips. Several people, including audience members, crew members, and even band members, were beaten bloody -- with broken pool cues being a weapon of choice. A couple were killed in a hit and run accident. And Merideth Hunter was stabbed and beaten to death, though he might have survived if there was any medical services, or if a helicopter might have lifted him to a hospital, instead of refusing because it was reserved for the Stones.

This book does a great job of chronicling the lead up to the concert, the day itself, and the aftermath. It casts a fairly cold light on everyone involved. No one comes out a hero, or even an innocent. But some are more guilty than others. The Angels are the obvious villains, but the book sees them more as a force of nature. They were in an impossible situation, and did not deal well with it. The Grateful Dead also come up for some criticism, especially Rock Scully, but mainly for having the idea for the concert and then allowing it to get out of control.

But the Stones get most of the blame. Selvin makes a fairly convincing case that they needed money, and wanted the movie made. They were willing to cut whatever corners they had to. They also engineered the organization so that none of the legal blame went back to them. Jagger insisted there be no cops. They highjacked the promotion of the concert and announced early that it would be at Golden Gate Park, thus assuring that the city council would shut down the location. They approved of the Speedway. They did little or nothing to make sure the stage would be adequate. They had the crowd wait for hours after lots of bad stuff had already happened, so they could go on at night, when the lighting would be right for the movie. And unlike anyone else, in the midst of evil and mayhem, the Stones played their absolute best. They were in their element.

[Tom Gase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good writing and research on this murder mystery...with the Rolling Stones. I can't believe this actually happened. I knew about the concert at Altamont a little having gone to SF State, where one of the Rolling Stone editors (John Burks) was my journalism advisor. But I didn't know the whole story. This IS THE WHOLE STORY. Everyone and every side is talked about from the bands, to the promoters, to the Hells Angels, to the police, to the press, to the fans, to SF city council, to other sites not used, to other promoters not used. Everyone. I loved this book and was sad when it ended. The fact that I live in the Bay Area makes it even more interesting. Oh yeah, and then there's the main music act, the Rolling Stones at arguably the best time in their career, right before it briefly went downhill due to the tragic events at this concert that was so horribly planned I can't believe people went along with this. A major music festival in the Bay Area with no police? Hells Angels instead? Yeah that won't turn out bad. If you are a music fan and live in the Bay Area, this book is a MUST. I will probably read again, and possibly in the next year in time for the 50th anniversary.

[Don Gorman · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2 1/2) A friend of mine told me about this after hearing Selvin on NPR. Selvin is a respected rock writer, I have read a couple of his books. This one is mostly remarkable in the incredibly unprofessional way this concert was dealt with. We perceive these guys and their operators to be big time business moguls, totally on top of everything. Well, guess what; it was 1969, Jagger was 25, everybody had their hands out and no one was really minding the store. No surprise that it turned out to be a total disaster. I was really disheartened to read at the recap that the Stones stiffed about everyone all along the way on this tour (I was at the Detroit show). An amazing snapshot of a very important time in rock and roll. An important book? Not really, only to us music junkies.

[T. Kovak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every 30 minutes in this book: (bats fly out of a tower. thunder strikes in a distance. witches fly through the air. milk curdles. babies weep as if disturbed by something stirring in veil of their dream.)

Mick Jagger: great day for rock and roll

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Selvin knows how to tell a story… I did not realize the number of bands involved in the Altamont concert. What a scary out of control situation this turned out to be when the dust settled.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

If your only knowledge of the tragedy of the free concert at Altamont Raceway comes from the Maysles' Brothers documentary "Gimme Shelter", you haven't heard the whole story. Author Joel Selvin takes us back to that dark day and examines the various unstoppable forces that to the concert and the aftermath.

The film would have viewers believe that the Rolling Stones and the Hell's Angels were largely responsible for the bad trip that was Altamont. Selvin aptly points fingers at plenty of other culprits who could have turned it into Woodstock West or cancelled the whole thing when it became apparent that it would be a disaster. The whole sad tale is told from a fan's perspective, if that fan was also an investigative journalist. The music is praised but the musicians are closely scrutinized as much as the Angels, the police and the promoters. It turns out that some people who were barely in the documentary had some large roles to play offscreen.

This is very good book on a topic I thought I knew pretty well. Next time I watch "Gimme Shelter" I'll be looking for the clues I missed in previous viewings.

[Kitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's what I knew about Altamont before I read this book: someone was stabbed to death by a Hell's Angel while the Stones were on stage, and that it marked the end of the peace and love era that flowered at Woodstock. Well there's a lot more to know than that! Joel Selvin did an amazing job writing a highly readable book that was at the same time very well researched. He introduces us to all the players and tells us what's what before the free concert at a run down disaster of a race track in northern California in December 1969. He gives us a brutal detailed picture of what happened that day, and lays the blame where the blame is due. Was it the Hell's Angels' fault? Mick Jagger and the Stones? Maybe the Grateful Dead? And what about the people who produced Green Acres--how did they play into this whole disaster? A fascinating read for any one who is interested in rock and roll and/or the darkest parts of human nature.

[Greg Strandberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a great book that grabs you. I read the first few chapters, then a couple more, then on my third go-round I read most of the rest of the book. When you get into the final days before the concert, it really starts moving and the pages turn.

The book does a great job telling all sides of the story, and giving you just about everything we know. For instance, I didn't know that there was a young teen that drowned, or that three people were run over after the concert.

The build-up and telling of all the business problems is great. The Stones took off from the States after this tour with a bag holding $1.8 million. Hearing how they started so many shows late is interesting too. They had one that was supposed to start at 8, but didn't until 11, and then they had a scheduled show after that at the same venue that didn't start until 4 AM.

Rock stars, sheesh!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up in the sixties was crazy. It was a sad, dark, wild era filled with the best music. The songs of the sixties still roll around in my head. I always wanted to learn the true story of Altamont, The Stones and the Hells Angels. This was a fascinating book, filled with history and insights.

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed and well-rounded history book. It lays the groundwork for what happened at Altamont, then tells the story through the eyes of various people who were there.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything I know about The Rolling Stones at Altamont and what went down I think I’ve pretty much gleaned through cultural osmosis, scattered throughout the various rock biographies, articles, interviews and documentaries I’ve consumed over the years (that decade loomed particularly large in my imagination as a teenager, so I consumed a lot)

This is an excellently written look at everything that led up to the concert, what happened during it and the fallout from it that reads like a blend of some of the best rock journalism and true crime that I’ve read.

Selvin conveys well the mix of idealism, hubris, greed, naivety and opportunism that saw the Stones and their team decide to put on a free festival following the success of Woodstock while failing to learn from any of the mistakes and making humungous new ones of their own. The atmosphere of utter chaos is made clear by Selvin from the start, building the tension as the hype is built a little too far and wide for the concert all while they’re still flinging a stage together on the morning of.

By the time the gig opens Selvin does a great job of making you feel how different the atmosphere was to that at Woodstock, with this particular mixture of booze, bad trips and the amped up Hells Angels who’d been employed as security leading to a hostile and twitchy atmosphere that always seemed to be speeding towards violence.

It’s hard to read about the death of Meredith Hunter, but Selvin writes compassionately about him while getting the facts across. And he also sets out afterwards, when looking at the shock, lawsuits, and murder trial that followed, to call out people responsible for the decisions that led to one of rock’s most notorious events.

If you enjoy reading something that makes you feel like you’ve been dropped in the middle of the action, and if you’re at all a fan of that era of music (the Stones were just one of the names actually playing on the day) then you need to read this book.

**Also posted at Cannonball Read**

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a much more thorough explanation of the disaster of Altamont than what you see in the Maysles' film, Gimme Shelter, and provides a critical appraisal of the film's role in what unfolded. Among the most interesting revelations is that the Grateful Dead had been behind a lot of the organizing and were responsible for the decision to hire the Hell's Angels to work security. There were more incidents of violence and death than the Angels' murder of Meredith Hunter, and Selvin strives to explain the larger confluence of factors that led the day to be such a contrast to the fabled Woodstock concert. Instead of seeing Altamont as a metaphor for the end of the sixties, he meticulously describes perspectives of multiple players based on hundreds of interviews and press accounts. His larger argument is that the counter-culture was not as innocent as its portrayal had been at Woodstock, and that the free concerts organized in the Bay Area were already full of people who were just "wasted. " Beyond that, arrogant and seeking their own glory above all else, the Rolling Stones were out-of-touch and thoughtless of basic accommodations like bathrooms and water in the process of organizing the show. He allows complexity there too, and his descriptions of the band's loss of control and terror during their set make it hard to see them as simple ego-maniacal villains. The main weakness of the book is its failure to provide much context for the Angels' racism, which have been documented more thoroughly, it seems in the recent book by Saul Austerlitz that came out in 2018.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book about the rock scene of the '60s and about the Stones and Dead in particular. I learned a lot about Sam Cutler, the Stones and how the Grateful Dead figured in this debacle. It was interesting to read about how Mickey Hart's dad (Lenny) ripped the Dead off and how Bill Wyman did not talk to Keith Richards for 10 years as he (Richards) sank into his heroin bubble. Gram Parsons also is nicely profiled here and I am glad I did not know him. I was amazed at how out-of-it the Stones were when they decided to tour for the first time in three years. (There was a big difference between 1966 and 1969 that they did not seem to be aware of). Alas, the USA is not the UK and Mick and the boys were overwhelmed by the underside of the American version of the '60s (not unlike George Harrison who visited the Haight in '67 and was put off by what he saw). America can be a tough place and English ponces best be on their best behavior when visiting... All in all I think a drug-fueled mass hysteria gripped the American young in the late '60s. How else to explain some 300,000 people turning out for this shambolic spectacle? A stage four feet off the ground? Really good idea... The Dead were smart not to play.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always been fascinated by the story of Altamont--"Rock's Deadliest / Darkest Day", the free Rolling Stones concert held at Altamont Speedway in a barren outpost near San Francisco. Although hailed as "Woodstock West", in homage to the million people peaceful gathering just a few months prior, with the Hell's Angels as "security", no planning (the fest was literally pulled together in a matter of days), and most notably the 4 deaths that occurred-the most notable begin that of 19 y.o. Meredith Hunter who brandished a gun and was stabbed to death by Hell's Angels as the stones sang Sympathy for the Devil, this was anything but a peaceful hippie love in.

It was a disaster from the get go, so much so that the sponsoring band-the Grateful Dead, arrived and quickly left without performing. Once they saw the state of affairs, they skedaddled. The Stones were filming everything for a documentary about their tour that culminated in this free fest. So, the problems are very apparent for those who have seen Gimme Shelter, the movie that was released. No one was in charge, no one had planned for food, bathrooms, medical services, etc. and these "hippies" were mixing bad acid with alcohol, a counter culture no no just months earlier that signaled how the vibe had changed.

A fascinating tragedy caused by greed, hubris, naivete, and stupidity.

[Debbie Notkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book surprisingly upsetting, as Selvin walks us through the train wreck of setting up the Altamont concert, the extraordinary number of stupid and thoughtless decisions, and then the problems that ensued (including four deaths, including a murder caught on camera and immortalized in Gimme Shelter).

It provides quite an enlightening window into the music scene of the 1960s, the ways in which San Francisco expectations differed from London expectations, the change in how drugs were being used, the contrast between free concerts in San Francisco and free concerts in the countryside around the Bay Area, the opportunities for exploitive con men to game the culture, and much more.

If you're interested in this topic, definitely worth reading. But not for the faint of heart.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The hubris must have been irresistible, the folly unavoidable.

Cutler watched in shock at the chaos. The concert was less than four days away. It seemed impossible to do. It seemed impossible to stop. At one point, Grogan quietly went to the blackboard and wrote, “Charlie Manson Memorial Hippie Love Death Cult Festival.”


A detailed and eye opening account of the events surrounding Altamont that show the sheer amount of bad factors leading up to the night itself and the tailspin into notoriety after.

Loses half a star for it’s last chapter which serves as the author’s conclusion, where he oddly chooses to exonerate the Hells Angels of almost all liability. This is sort of a weird choice as it seems to undermine the very story the book has told us about the Angels. Apart from the baffling conclusion however the book is very good.

[Robert Reeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although young at the time, I still vividly recall the rise of the new rock era coming out of San Francisco and the UK in the late 60's. It was full of excitement, love, peace, and marvelous music, reaching a crescendo with Woodstock in August '69. Then, in December of that same year, it all came crashing down during the free concert at Altamont. This book is an in-depth, fascinating account of the events leading up to and including that fateful day and its aftermath. Wonderful insights into the inner workings of the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others. Along with the disastrous decision to have the Hell's Angels serve as security at the concert. An accomplished writer of that era, Joel Selvin has written a few eye openers, including the spellbinding Summer Of Love.