My first reaction is that it really does stretch reality to
claim the rise and death of any social movement in the short 110 days that
separated these two concerts. Rather, neither event is emblematic of social change. In truth, both are separate snapshots of
America at a time of social change. The elements
of the experiences of Woodstock and Altamont co-existed throughout the era, a
complexity that is true of any moment. After
all, don’t forget that San Francisco’s 1967 “summer of love” two years before Altamont
and Woodstock was also the summer of race riots in Buffalo, Newark, and
Detroit. In a truthful history, multiple
experiences and perspectives exist simultaneously. Seeing either Altamont or Woodstock as each
or jointly definitive misses the complexity of that era in an attempt to neatly
categorize the time and people. It’s a
mistake to see these events as providing any more meaning than the snapshot
moments that they are.
I was at Altamont. I
went with three other people, and we were in the upper bowl of the field that
sloped down to the stage – close enough to hear the music and far enough away
to miss the violence and chaos that surrounded the performers. As we arrived, people around me passed around
one-gallon jugs of Red Mountain wine and joints, a young couple next to us zipped
themselves into a sleeping bag and had sex (which at least seemed preferable to
the ones who were okay with sex in a rocking sani-can), and folks just sat
around on the grass or danced energetically whenever music played. So the event began as just another outdoor
music experience like the many that preceded and followed it. I arrived expecting something akin to the free
concerts in Golden Gate Park that I hitchhiked to see before and afterward; or the
free concerts that the collective I was part of organized on the other side of
the bay from San Francisco. Music,
dancing, and people getting high in the open air.
As all of the documentaries and articles I’ve read over the
years have noted, though, there was something different at Altamont. The event quickly felt noticeably dissimilar
from all the others. My experience there
and all of the articles and documentaries point to a clear reason: disorganization. Nothing worked. You can read how the Grateful Dead refused to
play after Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane got knocked out twice by the
Hells Angels who were supposed to be guarding the stage, or the other security
issues, or the poorly designed stage, or the lack of food, or long lines at the
toilets. For someone who attended, that
disorganization was palpable, and it generated uneasiness in the crowd. Pauses in the music are part of an outdoor
concert, as bands set up and transition.
But Altamont’s pauses highlighted the incompetence of a hastily
mismanaged event. Rumors about who was
going to play next and who wasn’t coming circulated with each pause. It was unclear whether there would be a next
act whenever one band finished. By the
late afternoon, people in the area where I watched began leaving. The harmony that pervaded all of the other
outdoor concerts I’d attended was gone by then.
Not knowing whether the concert would continue, the person who had
driven my group suggested we leave, and we did before sunset, the disastrous
Stones set, and the mayhem and murder that followed at the stage.
The disorder of Altamont was followed by other,
less-publicized concerts that were managed with more care. I attended and helped to organize many open-air
concerts over the next year, and nothing changed. People came, danced, listened to music. The failure of Altamont didn’t carry forward
into those other events. That’s not to
suggest that these events were trouble free.
At one concert our group organized that following summer, we had over 20
people overdose when someone passed around pills that were laced with PCP, a
hallucinogen that caused both mental and physical convulsions. Overall, though, the concert “vibe” didn’t
change at any other events I attended in the year after Altamont. And, truthfully, nothing changed as a result
of Woodstock, either.
What Woodstock and Altamont highlight for me is some of the
diversity of my generation that gets lost in the attempts to make these two
events emblems of anything. The 58,220 American
soldiers who were killed in Vietnam were mostly from that generation, as were
the members of the Black Panther Party who fed hungry children and stood up to
police violence against the Black community in Oakland. The Hell’s Angels who were given the freedom
to terrorize musicians and concert goers at Altamont were of that generation,
as were the trust-fund-backed financiers who paid the bills at Woodstock. I, a politically active, high school senior
at the time, was there with a college-attending acquaintance and that friend’s
brother, who worked in business. Music
brought us together for that moment, but the three of us were, and I imagine
still are, very different people in our outlooks and perspectives. People who attended Altamont with me were
socially connected by the music, but radically different in the cultures that
really defined us. To say that that
event signaled a cultural shift is to assume that we were all of the same
culture, and that’s just not accurate.
I understand that it makes a good story to write about, or
make a documentary about, how events are symbolic. But the resulting images that comprise such a
story are typically caricatures. In
order to highlight the story’s moral, it typically becomes a mixture of stock
characters and readily accessible plot points organized to make a statement. That’s what has happened with the Altamont story: The evil Hells Angels destroyed peace-loving flower children and signaled the end of that era. Such a
simplified reduction of any story always misses what’s really happening. On the surface, the “tribe” of my generation
came together at Altamont and failed to have the experience it had before. In reality, there wasn’t one “tribe,” and the
event wasn’t anything more than the failure of promoters to organize – while
ceding power and control to a group of bikers who didn’t have any interest in
anything more than having a good time themselves.
Everybody’s heard a Hammond organ playing, even if they
don’t know what they’re hearing. A
Hammond “tone
wheel” organ is an amazing piece of technology that has driven the music of
R&B, jazz, blues, and the sanctified church since the 1940s. It’s not the organ you hear at high mass in a
cathedral. It’s the one you hear as you
walk by a Pentecostal holiness church. Or
a blues club. You’ve heard that
sound. It’s immediately recognizable for
its pleading emotion. If you play one,
you know something about it that other people may not: Each key on the keyboard can produce more
than one note. By pulling out any of
nine drawbars, the player adds an additional note to the note being
pressed. If you ever have a chance to
sit at a Hammond and hear this, you’ll be amazed. Press any key (black or white) and then pull
out one drawbar. Pulling that drawbar
while pressing the key will add a second note to the first. Pull a second drawbar, and you’ll have the
original note and two additional notes; and so on – up to nine, harmonious
notes from one key on the keyboard. A
player develops a style where the drawbars are pulled in combinations to make
the sounds that sing to heavenly angels or cry from the pain of mistreatment.
The stories of the Altamont concert seem like a parallel to what
most people hear when listening to a Hammond organ. People hear a note, but they’re unaware that
each single note can include up to nine notes, and each chord is made up of
notes that use sophisticated combinations to produce a unique sound. Similarly, a simplistic analysis of any one
event like the Altamont concert cannot declaim the status of a generation of
people, a movement, or a societal shift.
Besides, evidence that refutes “the death of the sixties” is overwhelming. People of that era who tried to build harmony
like people experienced at most outdoor music events went on to build social
movements that spread across the country that range from Cooperative
Homecare Associates in New York to Breitenbush
Hot Springs in Oregon. Those who
were involved in political action, continued that action. Those who fought against injustice continued
their lives fighting injustice. I know
this because I’ve had the privilege to work in the trenches with people like
this for over 50 years. Their idealism
didn’t die because of a poorly managed concert; it’s only deepened and become
pragmatically stronger. That idealism evolved into action which pervaded our social systems, our religious
organizations, and even our businesses.
What these documentaries and articles on the Altamont
concert highlight to me is the folly of any simplification of the past which
ignores the diversity of experiences that comprise any history. Exploring complexities and the diversity of
experiences are critical lenses to use in assessing the stories we tell about
the past. So let’s start by remembering: Altamont was a poorly organized event that
led to the deaths of four people. No movement was born or died there. And history is far
too complex to be compartmentalized into a neat package. Full stop.
