Flashback: Rolling Stones play free gig

It was 37 years ago today (December 6th, 1969) that the Rolling Stones held their ill-fated free concert at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, California.

The bill, which also included Santana, the Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, is mainly remembered for the violence instigated by the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, whom the Stones had hired as security -- and one of the Hells Angels' murder of concertgoer Meredith Hunter.

Portions of the Stones' 1969 tour and the Altamont concert were filmed by filmmakers Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin, assisted by George Lucas. The film, featuring portions of both the Stones' November Madison Square Garden concerts and the Altamont concert, was released in 1970 as Gimme Shelter.

At the New York City press conference at the start of the tour, Mick Jagger said he thought that the free Northern California concert would follow in the footsteps of the Woodstock festival, in terms of how people would get along: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "It's creating a sort of a microcosmic society, you know, which, which it sets an example to the rest of America as to how one can behave in large gatherings."

Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen said that his only thought was to keep playing after he saw lead singer Marty Balin get punched in the face by one of the Hell's Angels: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "I remember thinking that -- of course, if you look at the footage, Jack (Casady) and Spencer (Dryden) and I pretty much keep on playing -- I remember thinking at the time, 'I'm just gonna keep playing and see what happens.'"

Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann says that the scene at Altamont was as tragic in real life as it appears in the Gimme Shelter footage: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "Yeah, it was horrible. It was a war. It felt really uncomfortable. It was a dark day. It was so dark that that night, we (the Grateful Dead) were playing that weekend for Bill Graham at the Carousel, and I refused to play that night, I was feeling so bad about what had happened that day. I didn't feel like going and celebrating it musically."

The Stones' full setlist at the Altamont concert was "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Carol," "Sympathy For The Devil," "The Sun Is Shining," "Stray Cat Blues," "Love In Vain," "Under My Thumb," the world premiere of "Brown Sugar," "Midnight Rambler," "Live With Me," "Gimme Shelter," "Little Queenie," "Satisfaction," "Honky Tonk Women," and "Street Fighting Man."
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