As vibrant and amazing as the history of rock and roll is here in the Bay Area, there are unfortunate black spots that pop up every so often. One of those is the Altamont Free Festival that was held in 1969 that included the Rolling Stones as headliners. Now this festival is sadly remembered for the amount of violence that went down including the death of Meredith Hunter who was stabbed to death by members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang who were hired as security after supposed recommendation from the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.
Though there is some footage of the event in the documentary “Gimme Shelter” it isn’t until now that we finally get to see more of the performances with new footage that has been found and preserved in the Library of Congress. It is unknown who the original videographer is but thanks to this we finally get to see more of the performances from Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers & Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Though we do see a little bit of a scuffle near the end during the nighttime performance of the Rolling Stones, it is a little too dark to truly see what is going on but at least we get to see Mick Jagger dancing and in a good mood during the performance.
Take a look at the 26 minutes of footage and as a forewarning, don’t adjust your volume as there is no audio, that’s what you get from 8mm film from back in the 60’s.