Talk:Altamont Free Concert
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[edit] Band promotion
The section about the Black Cab CD Altamont Diary that was added recently seems tangential to the article. If it's not just someone trying to promote their CD, perhaps it would be better included on a page about the band, with a link to this page. Szarka 15:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Article title
I think the title of this article needs to be clarified. Initially it seemed to be about the speedway, but it is mainly about the music festival.
- Even "Altamont Raceway Park" is dubious for the content. Why not "Altamont Rock Festival"? 66.190.72.225 14:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I also think this article should have another title, and it looks like this article is written by a gratefull death fan. Not that it's wrong to like their music, but at the end the article becomes too much an article about how they handled with the incident.
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- Retitled to Altamont Music Festival, checked for Double Redirects, believe I got them all. --Atechi 20:19, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Again, accusations have arisen by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead and others, that this was to ensure better lighting that would be available in an evening performance. Two of the deaths were caused by a hit-and-run car accident. Another death was the result of a person drowning in a drainage ditch.
The final two sentences seems out of place and should probably be placed immediatly after the first mention of three people being killed.
Also, someone please change the title of the article.
--Laggard 04:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the current title is confusing. However, it's difficult to know what the most accurate might be. I don't believe "Altamont Rock Festival" or "Altamont Music Festival" (as it's named on the disambiguation page), for example, were the name under which the event was promoted. (Seems unlikely, since the venue was changed to Altamont at the last minute.) A google search turned up multiple images of two purported "tour posters". Both are headed with "The Rolling Stones present", the date, a mention that the concert is free, and "Altamont Raceway". If these are authentic, then "Altamont Raceway" might, in fact, be the best title for this page. (Popular usage seems to be simply "Altamont" to refer to the event, but of course that title would be ambiguous.)
It looks like this page was changed from "Altamont" earlier, and links to this page seem to point to the redirect page at Altamont rather than directly. So, if a change is to be made, it would be good to make the change to the title first and then update the links from other pages. Szarka
I've changed it to Altamont Free Concert, since that was what the bold part in the intro said and I think it is most descriptive and accurate. It was not intended as a music festival per se, really, but rather a free concert at the end of the Stone's 1969 American tour as a gift to their fans.
I've also created an Altamont Motorsports Park article for the racetrack itself, and changed all the racetrack names to redirect to there. That should eliminate some of the present confusion with odd redirects. I've tried to fix up wlinks but may have missed a couple here and there. Wasted Time R 13:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for updating the article title references in the "American Pie" article, Wasted Time R. --Dkwong323 01:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Stage height
"The stage, which was only four feet high..." The article at http://www.echoes.com/rememberaday/altamont.html reports that the stage was only one foot high. Can anyone settle this question one way or another? Szarka
OK, I found a better source: the commentary at http://www.loc.gov/film/lund.html and especially Stanley Goldstein's response at http://www.loc.gov/film/lund.html. Based on this source, I'm going to make some changes:
- Change "four feet high" to "one foot high".
- See the discussion in this source re: the legend that the Angels were hired for $500 worth of beer. The article currently repeats this legend with the qualification "reportedly"; I'll try to clarify.
- Every source I've read, including this one, suggests that the change of venue was finalized only one day before the event. (The permit for holding the event at a public space in SF was either revoked or refused, depending on which source you believe, days before the event; but the Altamont Raceway as the venue wasn't finalized right away, first they attempted to negotiate the use of another venue.) I'll reword appropriately.
[edit] Security
Someone else might want to research the security arrangements in more details and rewrite further. (See Goldsteins discussion in the endnote's to his response, which suggests that the Angels didn't normally manage the crowd, just protect the equipment.) I left the part about "suspected that their involvement was motivated more by a desire to manage drug distribution at the concert" in, for example. But what is the source for this? Who, exactly, suspected that? It doesn't defy logic, or stretch credulity, by if I were making that claim, I'd want to be more specific. Szarka
[edit] Speedway name
Also changed an occurance of "Altamont Speedway" to "Altamont Raceway" to reflect usage elsewhere in the article, usage on the previously-mentioned posters, and the current whois registration for altamontraceway.com (now unavailable; they appear to have changed recently from doing business as "Alamont Raceway and Arena" to "Altamont Motorsports Park"). Szarka
[edit] Sonny
Sonny Barger WAS NOT the founder of the HAMC.
[edit] please correct height of stage
I just finished watching the actual 'Gimme Shelter' movie, and looked up Altamont on Wikipedia for more info on the murder shown in the movie. While the article as written is very informative, the height of the stage is clearly closer to chest high, not shin level (as 1 foot high would be).
You can review frames in the movie of fans attempting to climb onto the stage at many points; one clear example is at the beginning of 'Sympathy for the Devil' near the end of the movie. Note also when the female fans are pressed against the stage, everything below mid-chest is hidden by the stage.
I recommend you adjust the height of the stage to four feet as suggested by earlier contributors, and disregard the 1-foot height quoted from the article at http://www.loc.gov/film/lund.html
65.78.8.202 08:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)M.G.
[edit] to clarify height of stage
The article at http://www.loc.gov/film/lund.html says, "The stage was only a foot above the audience which made security even more difficult. Things started to get violent during the Jefferson Airplane's set."
So, it appears the source article for the 1-foot high stage quote, was quoted imprecisely in the Wiki. The source does not say the stage was 1-foot high, it says the stage was "a foot above the crowd."
I looked for a screen capture online, but found nothing from the actual movie, which shows fans pressed against the stage at chest height.
65.78.8.202 09:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)M.G.
[edit] phot showing stage height from filmmakers website
AH-ha! See the photo in black and white here: http://www.moviemaker.com/issues/44/images/Albert.Gimme.jpg
Fans are leaning on the stage, it is clearly neither "a foot above the crowd", nor is it "one foot high."
http://www.moviemaker.com/issues/44/docu.html The Legacy of Albert Maysles
65.78.8.202 09:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)M.G.
Nice to see more info on the height of the stage. Hmmm... Maybe instead of "one foot" the article should say something more ambiguous, like "a few feet" or "low"? Szarka 06:45, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] thanks for your reply
Yes, either a "low stage" or a "few feet high" is better than the inaccurate "one foot high."
IMO it would be best to describe it as "between 4 and 5 feet high"; the height of the stage contributed to the problems during the concert (fans climbed up onto the stage in droves; Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane was knocked unconscious during one brawl) and calling it "low" or a "few feet high", while not inaccurate, leaves too much to the reader's own interpretation of what that would look like.
Of course, the point is moot if one has seen the movie, but the article should to attempt to make a clear visual through language for those who do not have the movie on hand as reference material.
65.78.8.202M.G.
Good discussion here. Since the stage height in the article is clearly incorrect, I have edited the article to read "three to four feet high" based on the footage from Gimme Shelter. If a better consensus is reached here, please feel free to change. My personal preference is "approximately four feet high.". Satori Son 13:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] In Depth
It is absolutely ridiculous that you have to read down an entire paragraph to find out WHERE this thing took place...It should be in the first sentence. And then all it says is "Northern California".
- Fixed. Wasted Time R 13:28, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
