No matter how rowdy a rock ‘n’ roll concert might get, few come close to the violence and chaos of the Altamont Speedway Free Festival in California, which took place on December 6, 1969. Two years after the Summer of Love, the historic event seemingly marked the end of the counterculture movement. Rolling Stone dubbed it “rock ‘n’ roll’s all-time worst day,” and you could cite any number of incidents as the reason for this unfortunate moniker. Beatings, deaths, births, bad trips, rioting—you name it, and it was likely happening at Altamont.
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The Rolling Stones were the final band of the night, which meant they were performing at the height of the event’s hedonistic bedlam. It was during The Stones set that a member of the Hells Angels, a biker gang hired by The Grateful Dead to act as event security, killed an 18-year-old concertgoer named Meredith Hunter after getting into a scuffle with the teenager near the front of the stage. The Stones later said that, from their vantage point, they couldn’t tell the altercation turned deadly.
If Woodstock was the best of what the counterculture movement could be, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival was decidedly the worst. As often happens in the wake of immense tragedy, people started looking for someone or something on which they could place the blame. For David Crosby, it was The Rolling Stones.
David Crosby Blamed the Rolling Stones for the Tragic Event
Although several bands agreed to be a part of the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, it was technically The Rolling Stones’ idea. After facing criticism that their ticket prices were too high, the band opted to end their 1969 U.S. tour with a free concert in San Francisco. Logistical mishaps eventually moved the event to the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Performers included Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, CSNY, and The Rolling Stones. Interestingly, The Grateful Dead were slated to perform between Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and The Stones, but after observing the agitated crowd, The Dead decided against it. (They later wrote “New Speedway Boogie” about the event.)
Somewhat ironically, The Stones hired the Hells Angels as event security on the recommendation of Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, both of which had used the biker gang in the past with no problems. Nevertheless, after tragedy upon tragedy unfolded that day in early December, many believed the blame should fall squarely on The Rolling Stones’ shoulders—including David Crosby.
Speaking of the event after the fact, Crosby once said, “I think the major mistake was taking what was essentially a party and turning it into an ego game and a star trip of The Rolling Stones, who are on a star trip and who qualify in my book as snobs. I think they’re on a grotesque, negative ego trip, essentially, especially the two leaders [Mick Jagger and Keith Richards],” per Victor Bockris’ Keith Richards: The Unauthorized Biography.
Keith Richards Responded to the Rolling Stones Criticism
Bands are no strangers to criticism, but taking the blame for people dying is vastly different than someone simply not liking the music you make. And indeed, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards made no moves to shoulder that impossible burden, instead pointing the blame back on the country in general. “Do you want to just blame someone, or do you want to learn from it?” Richards pushed. “I don’t really think anyone is to blame, in laying it on the Angels. Looking back, I don’t think it was a good idea to have the Hells Angels there. But we had them at the suggestion of The Grateful Dead, who’ve organized these shows before. They thought they were the best people to organize the concert. It’s a problem for us either way.”
“If you don’t have them come to work for you as stewards,” Richards continued, “they come anyway and cause trouble. In a way, those concerts are a complete experiment in social order. Everybody has to work out a completely new plan of how to get along. But at Altamont, people were just asking for it. They had those victims’ faces. Really, the difference between the open-air show we held here in Hyde Park [in London] and the one there [in California] is amazing. I think it illustrates the difference between the two countries.”
Richards added, “In Hyde Park, everybody had a good time, and there was no trouble. You can put half a million young English kids together, and they won’t start killing each other. That’s the difference.”
Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Image
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