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Primeval Gloom... the Swamp... Altamont

Sandy Darlington

Altamont—The Stones' free concert. Sympathy for the Devil. "Something wierd always seems to happen when we play this song," said Mick Jagger as the Angels murdered a black man on the stage about twenty feet away from him.

The Sunday Examiner and the Oakland Tribune lied about it. So did radio and TV. Including Ksan, at least during the time of the concert, They were programmed for Woodstock West, instant Woodstock. So they reported it, even though it never happened. A beautiful day. Only one murder.

I got there a half hour early. Parked a half mile away. Walked into the front row mumbling some litany about Press and sat down, my arm leaning on the monitor speakers. The traffic jam was another media myth, you see.

A fat guy about three hundred pounds of heavenly joy, stripped. Naked blubber. Gross. Idiot smile, His bouncy body and his little pecker. Like a parody. But it was all right if he wanted it that way, from my point of view.

However, the sight of him freaked some stud who immediately wanted to beat him up. Not an Angel. Just some young man who immediately stiffened and started growling, like a German Shepherd getting ready for a dog fight. His girl friend threw herself on him: "No, Johnny, no!" Rebel without a cause.

Later a bunch of people, mostly Angels, beat the fat guy up.

The first fight was with pool cues. I think somebody hit an Angel to start it. Anyway, an Angel toppled into Ed Leimbacher's lap as he sat unable to move and everybody else split. During Santana's set. Oh, yes, all the music was good. I was about five feet away. Suddenly the crowd exploded. Young people, hairy . . . now hippies . . . the windbreaker—wearing set, last two years of high school, first two of college. They had been throwing food to each other shortly before. Suddenly, in one spot they exploded and began rushing away screaming "No! Stop! Help!" A circle of open ground. In the middle people were hitting each other. A photographer at the side, getting focused. An Angel said "No pictures!" Two of them jumped the photographer. Another guy said something like "Hey! Stop that!" An Angel cracked him over the head with a pool cue. He sat down.

People all around began to raise their hands in the V sign. That was their big response. It was so fucking pathetic.

Another fight during the Airplane set. Balin tried to stop it. They beat him up. Kanter got pissed off and said so over the mike. An Angel went for him.

"You're hitting my lead singer."

"He insulted my brothers."

"This is my band."

"This is my family."

Finally Grace Slick wooed them away with a rap about fucking is better than fighting. Don't touch bodies except to make love. Smiling at various Angels. Whorehouse tactics. And brave. And smart. Lili Marlene. It pissed me off that the Airplane kept playing during one fight. It pissed me off that Jorma wore a big iron swastika around his neck. Oh yes, it's a sun symbol. And we're only in it for the music. They ended their set with a song about revolution. Horseshit.

Balin was brave. Or foolish? Yes, but there were few fools that brave that day. Hardly anybody stepped into the fighting to stop it like he did. And if Grace hadn't stepped forward, the temper was such that the Angels were about to massacre the Airplane.

Why didn't the Airplane walk off stage then? I doubt they could have. They were at bay.

No fights during Flying Burrito Brothers. One fight during Crosby, Stills etc.

We half-watched the music, half-watched for the next fight. People said "When the Stones come on, somebody will get killed." It was in the air.

The whole crowd was uptight from the start. They wanted Instant Woodstock. Too crowded. Body to body. At the end of a set, we'd stand up. Whereupon people would push forward. Then others would yell "Sit Down!" We'd sit down on each other, or yell "I can't until you move back! Yes, it was inhuman. So this is the Aquarian Age.

I kept thinking we are so stupid, so unable to cope with anything practical. Push forward, yes, smoke dope, yes. But maintain? Never. We don't know how. We've been coddled, treadmilled, straight-teethed and vitamin-pilled, but we don't know what to Do on our own. Reports of a revolution are vastly premature. We don't like the power structure. But we have to live together. We will be governed by others until we learn how to govern ourselves.

Sam Cutler, the Stones' road manager, was MC. I liked his London accent. Many didn't like him because of his manner and choice of words. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was things like, "People, we must resolve our tensions with equanimity."

Then: "Move back. Get off the light towers. We need a doctor. This is a Party."

Dull technical English vibes. The English live together fairly well. They do it by being repressed. Mind your head, don't jump the queue. It's not much help in a high energy situation.

During the Stones' set, there were several fights at first. It was dark then. Primeval gloom. The swamp. Suddenly a circle would open up. In the middle, a bunch of Angels kicking somebody.

A girl jumped on stage to touch Mick. Four or five Angels pounded on her. Jagger said "Hey Hey, One of you guys can handle her, you don't need eight." After he said it three times, they desisted a bit. No more girls tried to get on the stage.

At one point, some Angels drove their bikes into the front of the crowd to take the pressure off stage. That sounds terrible, and the noise was a drag. But in fact it was a good idea, except that after ten minutes people had swamped where the bikes were.

The crowd got into hating Angels without much trouble. All those nice kids with their V signs that didn't do anything, and their day was being spoiled by the Hells Angels. Deplore violence. Oh life would be so beautiful if only the bad guys weren't here.

I don't like Authority ever, so I didn't like the Angels much either. But how to relate right then? How to help? I'm not a fighter. And talking was out. Hence, I was as helpless as anyone. Impotent. That's the word. When the musicians tried to calm things down, they were the same way. They had power of sorts as long as they played. But as soon as they stepped out from the shelter of their guitars and said "Cool It," it was like a commercial.

During the Stones' set, the fights were all the more terrifying. Because of the darkness. Somebody threw a smoke bomb into the first few rows at the beginning of Sympathy for the Devil Some brother, as we say.

And in the middle of the circle, there page 13 would be one or two lying on the ground bleeding.

Who got the Angels to act as Security? The Stones and the Grateful Dead. Gleason puts them down for that. Well, I saw the Angels do the same job at the Be—In, at Santa Clara Rock Festival, and their beautiful birthday party dance at the Carousel with Big Brother in 1968. They were rough. They are rough people. But within bounds. And I thought that they did a good job.

Ahead of time, I think it seemed quite reasonable for them to buy Security at Altamont. I figure it this way: Everybody was busy with negotiations and carpentry, and somebody said "What about Security?" And somebody else said, "Call the Angels." And everybody said "Yeh, great, well that's one problem taken care of." And that was it.

At the concert proper there was an air of frustration, nerves and tension from the start. It had nothing to do with the Angels. A lot of people were passing out free drugs. It's wrong to give out tree drugs at a crowd. It simply is wrong. People who do it should be stopped. Because it's so tempting. If someone would have laid acid on me at the beginning, I would have taken it.

Why is it wrong? Because the situation is too crowded. You can't move your body. And you can't move your mind. And when heavy things happen, like fights, it starts a current going in everyone. Also the younger a person is, the more likely he or she is to take the drug as a festive gesture, and the less likely he or she is to be able to maintain. In short, it increases the chances of bad trips. And that is wrong.

The bad vibes of the situation got to the Angels. Well, no, that's unfair. They got to all of us, but the Angels were supposed to be the Force of the moment, so they soaked up the bad vibes and got upset easily. If you want to blame somebody, you can blame them. But if you do, you are lying. It's false to blame them for beating people up. Because we all know that about them ahead of time, That's why we ask them to "keep peace," because they are tough and they can fight. We expect that of them.

But when the situation got tough and wierd, then suddenly we as a crowd expected Them to fall in with our version of how things should be done. Well, life doesn't work that way. We gave them authority. When you give someone authority, it's because you are unwilling to do it yourself. And when you give someone authority, they carry it out Their way, not yours. That's fair, after all. They were asked to do The dirty job so the rest of us could lay back and be joyful and irresponsible.

As we do so often. Don't we, boys and girls?

I don't know anything about the Angels personally, and I'm talking as a spectator. It seems to me that a man wants to be an Angel partly because they are tough and because of the bikes and jackets but there is a deeper reason also. They are proud to be Angels, because they know they are honest. And they are. You don't get any bullshit. Quite true, they aren't pacifists. But they aren't saying they are, either. They are saying, among other things, "Don't fuck with us or we'll fight you." And that crowd fucked with them. The whole day fucked with them. We were frustrated. And we wanted violence. We got it. Don't make scapegoats of them.

All you groovies who are saying that politics is dead, look around you, and within you: there's a lot more dead and dying than you realize. And forget the slogan about how rock music is revolution. It ain't so. Revolution is change, and it's based on people. Huge amounts of them. And the huge amounts haven't learned anything yet. If you really like the slogan that music is revolution, try it out on the Panthers. Go tell Bobby Seale that Aretha is where it's at.

It's reality check time in the old west.

Yeah, and what about the Stones? Ah yes, speaking of theater. Violence and frustration, Jagger pulled off his belt during Midnight Rambler and began hitting the stage with it. As in, "You heard about the Boston" Whap! It's the same as Pete Seeger with that axe. But not on the surface. And mass crowds relate to surface.

So the Stones loot the United States and sing violent songs. People say "Why don't you sing for tree?" So they do. They protract the arrangements for the concert the same way they draw out their set, aiming for peak frustration. "You think you're a bunch of flower children, you fucking American fascist creeps. Look how disgusting you are. Mind fuck. Pleased to introduce myself, hope you catch my name."