On December 6, 1969, four months after Woodstock, the Rolling Stones closed their U.S. tour with a free concert meant to answer complaints about high ticket prices and share a bill with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Golden Gate Park, San Jose State and Sears Point Raceway all fell through, the last over a cash deposit and film rights tied to the Maysles brothers’ documentary Gimme Shelter. On the night of December 4, businessman Dick Carter’s Altamont Speedway near Tracy, California, became the venue, leaving about 48 hours to prepare for over 300,000 people. The stage ended up at the bottom of a slope and only 39 inches high, and the Hells Angels were brought in to guard it, paid in $500 worth of beer.
As the crowd pressed down the hill, Angels beat people back with sawed-off pool cues. Jefferson Airplane singer Marty Balin was knocked unconscious, the Grateful Dead left without playing, and Mick Jagger was punched as he stepped off his helicopter. During Under My Thumb, 18-year-old Meredith Hunter drew a revolver near the stage and was stabbed by Angel Alan Passaro, a moment the film crews did not realize they had captured until screening footage in New York. A jury that saw the footage acquitted Passaro in 1971. The day left four people dead, and Rolling Stone’s 14-page report blamed the organizers and the band.
- Stones road manager Sam Cutler and Oakland Angels leader Sonny Barger gave conflicting accounts of what security role the bikers were hired for.
- The counterculture’s trust in the Angels traced back to Ken Kesey’s acid tests and a peaceful London show at Hyde Park.
- Stephen Stills was reportedly stabbed in the leg with a sharpened bicycle spoke.
- The other deaths were a drowning in an irrigation canal and two people killed in a hit-and-run.
- In 2008 a former FBI agent said some Angels had plotted to kill Jagger by boat at his Long Island home, until a storm nearly sank the vessel.
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