I was 19 when the Stones played at Altamount. At the time, I wasn't a big Stones fan; I was loyal to the Beatles and saw the Stones as interlopers. If the Beatles were good day sunshine, the Stones were the dark side sympathy for the devil. It wouldn't be until I was into my 30s that I'd give the Stones my serious attention, despite Altamount.
Now that I can revisit Altamount through the long lens of time, I accept that its chaos and violence grew out of a combustible brew of people and events, inspired by the free range of drugs infecting the times. Innocents depended on peace and love to regulate the crowd, not knowing that the Hell's Angels have that name for a specific reason. People tend to romanticize the period, forgetting its manicness, filthiness, and limitless freedom. There were no boundaries, emphasized in the film by the crowd encroaching on the stage while Jagger naively invokes our "oneness." In fact, it's Jagger's demeanor that rivets me watching this film again, at the age of 56. On stage that night, I see his naiveté, his fear, his middle-class breeding emerging underneath all that color and style and hair. I can see that he truly doesn't understand the violent reality of this American culture and for a moment he's knocked off his script because the crowd isn't going along with the act as they usually do. And that is what saddens me, realizing that at that time the Stones were just an act, young Mick the gay jester flying around on stage with polyester wings and pink scarves.
Now they are really the Stones, grown into the real thing that I adore. No doubt Altamount spurred their growth, as it did a generation of toked-up kids who tasted the blood of anarchy that night at a rock concert.
Now that I can revisit Altamount through the long lens of time, I accept that its chaos and violence grew out of a combustible brew of people and events, inspired by the free range of drugs infecting the times. Innocents depended on peace and love to regulate the crowd, not knowing that the Hell's Angels have that name for a specific reason. People tend to romanticize the period, forgetting its manicness, filthiness, and limitless freedom. There were no boundaries, emphasized in the film by the crowd encroaching on the stage while Jagger naively invokes our "oneness." In fact, it's Jagger's demeanor that rivets me watching this film again, at the age of 56. On stage that night, I see his naiveté, his fear, his middle-class breeding emerging underneath all that color and style and hair. I can see that he truly doesn't understand the violent reality of this American culture and for a moment he's knocked off his script because the crowd isn't going along with the act as they usually do. And that is what saddens me, realizing that at that time the Stones were just an act, young Mick the gay jester flying around on stage with polyester wings and pink scarves.
Now they are really the Stones, grown into the real thing that I adore. No doubt Altamount spurred their growth, as it did a generation of toked-up kids who tasted the blood of anarchy that night at a rock concert.