I think Micky Jageroo handled it pretty well onstage during that night despite general disbelieve. He kept pretty cool considering what was going on around him. I think I would have run off the stage and jumped into that helicopter a little eaelier then the Stones did! Despite the ' you've been beautiful' remark he kept his head together and tried his best to calm everything down. By not finishing the show they would have created an ever bigger chaos I think. My Question:

What would you have done / said if you were up there in front of 500.000 people that night with some nutters in the front?

Jagger does come off like a frightened schoolboy who has realised hes got into something that he cant control anymore, but as you said, who wouldnt have been in the same situation? Easy to watch it within the confines of your own home, laugh and say "what a wimp"

It would have been very easy and understandable for the Stones to have walked off amidst all that carnage but its to their credit that not only did they finish their show (because the worst incidents took place relatively early on) but that they actually played what was for them in those days, a pretty lengthy show (almost 90 minutes)

Potted Shrimp Wrote:
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>
> What would you have done / said if you were up
> there in front of 500.000 people that night with
> some nutters in the front?


Me? "Good to be here; good to be anywhere" (I actually think that's where Keith started this...)

He kept it together pretty well considering the circumstances. When watching Gimme Shelter you can almost feel the dread and the fear in the crowd at Altamont and during "Under My Thumb" you can hear the fear in Jagger's voice as he sings "I pray it's just alright" during the outro. Did he sing this line at any other gig I wonder? Appropriate.

certainly bad vibes that day.. when you see how the the hells angels were watching jagger on stage ..at anytime he could of been attacked by them ..there no way i would of had them so close to me on stage.But its a good film in its way ..how not to stage an outdoor gig and change the site 24 hours b4.

The Stones freakin' ROCKED at that show....the two Micks were pretty scared, but Keith was the Yin to their Yang...He was unbelieveable. Some of those versions of songs from that show were the best ever. Kieth's Solo on Sympathy is my fave EVER of that song.

JR

You have to remember he was only 26 years old......thought he did bloody well considering. Weren't the Dead supposed to be playing that day, but they bottled it?

ChrisM Wrote:
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> during "Under My Thumb" you can hear
> the fear in Jagger's voice as he sings "I pray
> it's just alright" during the outro.

I pointed out Jagger's choice of the word pray to some friends the other night while we were watching Gimme Shelter for millionth time.

It's amazing watching those scenes from Gimme Shelter...the bad vibes and the tension in the air, sort of a nightmarish feel to the whole thing. I don't blame Mick for being scared. During Sympathy one of the Hells Angels goes up to Jagger and whispers something in his ear...was he threatening him? Very scary scene.

stone-relics Wrote:
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> The Stones freakin' ROCKED at that show....the two
> Micks were pretty scared, but Keith was the Yin to
> their Yang...He was unbelieveable. Some of those
> versions of songs from that show were the best
> ever. Kieth's Solo on Sympathy is my fave EVER of
> that song.
>

Well, he probably knew that it wasn't him that was most likely to be attacked.

cc wrote: Well, he probably knew that it wasn't him that was most likely to be attacked.


Keith made sure of that...He was furious, and probably scared the Angels....Nothing worse than a pissed off Keith with an electric guitar...Just ask that guy from Hampton, 18 Dec. 1981, or Harold Pendleton....

JR

Keith showed tremendous balls that night. He was surrounded by a hostile group of jacked up thugs who glady would have attacked him given half a chance(witness Marty Balin) and he made no bones about how he felt about being upstaged by them. Sonny Barger said in an interview that he stuck a gun in Keith's ribs and told him to keep playing after Keith said that they would stop playing if "...those cats don't stop beatin' up everyone in sight, man." or words to that effect. However my feeling is that the story is apocryphal. I mean, consider the source.

i think that keith at that point had a vague outlaw image that projected to th angels. they probably considered the whole group to be a bunch of english prissies. i don't think that keith showed any balls( sorry chris) i just think that he was more than likely out of his head and ignorant to the fact that the angls could've stomped him at any second. don't forget that the stones were used to the english-soft-version of the angels, not the hard core bad asses that they hired.
barger is probably telling a story...there was no way keith would listen to anyone about what he would or should do from the stage...i think that the stones continued to play because they didn't really know exactly what was going on and they figured that the music would perhaps calm everyone...maybe this is why is was such a good show, they may've been playing for lives...
on a side note: phil lesh finally came out and admitted that the grateful dead pretty much wimpped out and that if they had played that day there wouldn't have been such a gap between acts and their music may've helped to calm the angels down.
remember that there was quite a gap between bands and the angels pretty much got stoned drunk bored and instead of beating each other up they had a few hundred thousand folks to pick from...
mick's whole brothers and sisters faux 60's jive was lost on the angels...they weren't big fans of hippies...

And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange



Hey check the black cat with the
white hat kinda looks like Richard Pryor.......



ROCKMAN

ROCKMAN

In 82 things went ugly again in France...Stones security...took care..anyone have the story?

stone-relics Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> cc wrote: Well, he probably knew that it wasn't
> him that was most likely to be attacked.
>
>
> Keith made sure of that...He was furious, and
> probably scared the Angels....Nothing worse than a
> pissed off Keith with an electric guitar...Just
> ask that guy from Hampton, 18 Dec. 1981, or Harold
> Pendleton....
>
> JR

No, that it WASN'T him that would be attacked. I mean that mick would be anyone's main target. So in a sense, keith could say whatever he wanted and probably come away unscathed if anything happened. I'm not at all saying he was a coward, but come on, he's not the cowboy hero some of you are painting him as.

i always wondered about the guy with the wirerim glasses, ciggie , and curly hair...who is he and where is he now?

I'm sure that Ketih wasn't blind to that the fact that the Angels were kicking the shit out of anybody that crossed them so I'll stand by the statement that Keith had balls that night. As to English Hell's Angles there not exactly soft but I take your point about their American counterparts CC.

... altamont was unbelievable, a true event,, , !!!!!

thanks as usual for the incrediable photo rockman... ill take a dozen of em ta use as place mats......

keith was totally out that night stone-relics,so don,t talk more of this hero shit.is he a newborn john wayne?so you mean the angels was scared of keith richards?that,s some of the dumbest shit i,ve heard

Judging Jagger solely on the Gimme Shelter movie is wrong. Listen to the complete audience tape of the show, and you hear a complete different Jagger. He sounds really pissed off, cursing a lot, actually telling the Angels the @#$%& off. He sounds very in control, if that was even possible at that moment.

Mathijs

ROCKMAN

You can see the fear!!!

It's really profound how the images magnify the perception of the event as the end of an era - that era being the movement of the 1960s - both in the sense that the decade was closed and that the emotions ignited an irreversible change in the outlook of things at that time. It's very scary in a way that it was a premonition for much worse things to come, but at the same time it was the magnum opus for the tension that was brewing because of race relations, vietnam, the peace movement. It symbolized how all things must come to an end, some tragically. It's always interesting to think of Altamont on this level. It symbolized more than a free concert.

Eric Burdon...San francisco nights...sometimes I think its partly about Altamont.

Did Keith actually make the sign of the Cross at one point? It sure looks like it on the film....

Eric Burdon's San Francisco song was a hit in August of 1967, just a bit prior to Altamont.

Ok than..to me it really feels like a end of the sixties anthem.