On This Day: Deaths at Rolling Stones’ Altamont Concert Shock the Nation
December 06, 2008
FindingDulcinea.com Staff
On Dec. 6, 1969, four people died at a hastily arranged free concert headlined by the Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway in Northern California.
The concert, held only four months after the generation-defining Woodstock Festival in upstate New York, was seen by many as the end of hippie culture, and marked the death of the Swinging Sixties, a decade famous for social, musical and sexual revolutions.
Originally planned for San Francisco, the concert was relocated after the city revoked its permit. It was then moved to Sears Point, but a dispute forced a second relocation to the disused Altamont Speedway just two days before the concert.
Concert organizers rushed to build a stage, transport equipment and find security. They hired the Hells Angels, a motorcycle gang with a history of violence and involvement in a host of illegal activities, to provide security, allegedly in return for $500 worth of beer, though both parties deny this claim.
The concert was marked by violence from the start, as the Hells Angels used pool cues to control the crowd and protect the four-foot stage. During a performance by Jefferson Airplane, singer Marty Balin was knocked unconscious by an Angel who jumped onto the stage to break up a fight. The incident, as well as the general violence, convinced the Grateful Dead to cancel their performance.
The Rolling Stones took the stage in the evening, when the violence would turn deadly. Meredith Hunter, an African-American teenager, approached the stage armed with a knife and gun. Hells Angel Alan Passaro attacked Hunter, stabbing him several times with a knife as the Stones finished “Under My Thumb.”
The incident was captured on film by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, who created the concert documentary, “Gimme Shelter.” It shows Hunter, at stage left, fighting with a group of Hells Angels and holding a gun; Passaro sees the gun from his position near center stage and attacks Hunter.
“He rushes forward and is at Hunter's back, his left hand gripping Hunter's gun hand, forcing it down, while raising the knife in his right fist and plunging it into Hunter's neck,” The Times of London describes. “Hunter lurches forward, back towards the darkness from where he came. The Angel clings on, moving with him, again raising his right fist and bringing the knife down on Hunter's neck.”
Hunter was stabbed five times and died on site. The Rolling Stones settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Hunter’s mother out of court. Passaro was tried for murder, but was acquitted because he acted in self-defense. There was a police inquiry into whether there was a second stabber, but it was closed in 2005.
Three other concertgoers died that day; two died in a hit-and-run car accident and one drowned in a drainage ditch. “It was perhaps rock and roll's all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong,” wrote Rolling Stones' John Burks.
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