The Library of Congress just uploaded some previously unseen Altamont footage from their collection:

[blogs.loc.gov]

I'm currently in the process of working on syncing up audio and will post it when it's done.

thank you mr. changer for all the work you do for us fans

your awesome

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automaticchanger
The Library of Congress just uploaded some previously unseen Altamont footage from their collection:

[blogs.loc.gov]

I'm currently in the process of working on syncing up audio and will post it when it's done.

Great find!

Did you grab the 900Mb version of the film - much clearer in that version.

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

wow 26 mins of new footage

this is so great i wouldn't want to be in your place trying to sync this

so this was just left at a development lab and never picked up

incredible

what is the resolution of the video you have?

does it look better then what's on the site or the same?

cool

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automaticchanger
The Library of Congress just uploaded some previously unseen Altamont footage from their collection:

[blogs.loc.gov]

I'm currently in the process of working on syncing up audio and will post it when it's done.

Footage looks really good!! Thanks!
Looking forward to the audio sync

The best resolution I could find, and it's a BIG file is at

[tile.loc.gov]

If you can grab that, go for it.

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

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ProfessorWolf
wow 26 mins of new footage

this is so great i wouldn't want to be in your place trying to sync this

so this was just left at a development lab and never picked up

incredible

what is the resolution of the video you have?

does it look better then what's on the site or the same?

I captured the stream with VLC and ended up with a large mp4 file, 1080p. The hardest part about syncing up silent footage is that unless you have the original film, you can't ever be totally sure that the clips are presented in linear order as they were shot. Case in point with this footage, as SFM shows up out of sequence, which I was only able to spot thanks to a flash bulb going off on a frame:

Great footage, never knew Mick and Keith watched Gram play, and never knew Gram was copying Jagger stage performance so much....

Mathijs

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automaticchanger

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ProfessorWolf
wow 26 mins of new footage

this is so great i wouldn't want to be in your place trying to sync this

so this was just left at a development lab and never picked up

incredible

what is the resolution of the video you have?

does it look better then what's on the site or the same?

I captured the stream with VLC and ended up with a large mp4 file, 1080p. The hardest part about syncing up silent footage is that unless you have the original film, you can't ever be totally sure that the clips are presented in linear order as they were shot. Case in point with this footage, as SFM shows up out of sequence, which I was only able to spot thanks to a flash bulb going off on a frame:

interesting

good luck

this is really gonna be something special when your done

Wow, very cool - especially the footage in the first half.....being in daylight it is so interesting to see Santana, CSNY, Flying Burritos, the Airplane in such clarity, bearing in mind the camera technology of the day. Whoever shot the film had extraordinary access and was able to move to the other side of the stage for the Stones set. Fascinating stuff.

It was hard to figure out the song they are playing - my guess is Symphany for the Devil. I didn't realize it was dark out when the stabbing took place, really hard to see it here. THE Maysles movie Gimme Shelter is much clearer, but I'm happy to see some "New" old footage so thanks for posting the link!

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automaticchanger
The Library of Congress just uploaded some previously unseen Altamont footage from their collection:

[blogs.loc.gov]

I'm currently in the process of working on syncing up audio and will post it when it's done.

Thanks. Great find.

Quote
automaticchanger
The Library of Congress just uploaded some previously unseen Altamont footage from their collection:

[blogs.loc.gov]

I'm currently in the process of working on syncing up audio and will post it when it's done.

Wow ! thanks !!

Mr. Changer thank you for posting this rare footage and good luck with the audio sync! Sounds like a lot of hard work but we are extremely grateful for the time and effort you're putting into an audio sync.

On another thread we were going on about how it would be nice to get a 'Rolling Stones' version of the Peter Jackson treatment of 'Get Back'.

Now I'm thinking, wouldn't it be nice if we got an expanded behind the scenes leading up to the Altamont show, and cleaned up video/audio for the show?

Gimme Shelter is great, but imagine a deep dive on it, with more background on the tour.

Too dark maybe. Get Back was euphoric...hard for an Altamont Redux to get 'euphoric'.

Flying Burrito Brothers and well known guests backstage







HMN

Days of Rage - The Rolling Stones Road to Altamont is on Sky Arts tonight - anyone seen it already?
video: [www.youtube.com]

Burrito Bros footage is sensational!

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Mathijs
Great footage, never knew Mick and Keith watched Gram play, and never knew Gram was copying Jagger stage performance so much....

Mathijs

That was my first thought too. It's been said how Gram inspired the Stones but it's rarely mentioned how the Stones influenced Parsons and now when I saw Gram's performance, I can see he was copying Mick. Nice to see Mick and Keith watching his band too. Who was the young lady with them I wonder?

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Eleanor Rigby
Burrito Bros footage is sensational!

Yes and I didn't knew like some of you that Mick and Keith were backstage during Gram's set.





HMN

No, you're not in the USSR



HMN

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MadMetaphoricalMax
Days of Rage - The Rolling Stones Road to Altamont is on Sky Arts tonight - anyone seen it already?
video: [www.youtube.com]

Haven’t seen this before.

Watching it now.

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Honestman

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Eleanor Rigby
Burrito Bros footage is sensational!

Yes and I didn't knew like some of you that Mick and Keith were backstage during Gram's set.

Hey Honestman - great job on brightening the Stones pics!
I can't believe how dark it is in the new footage.
Some other altamont footage I have seen (not out of GS movie) is much brighter....even amateur footage.

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Eleanor Rigby

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Honestman

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Eleanor Rigby
Burrito Bros footage is sensational!

Yes and I didn't knew like some of you that Mick and Keith were backstage during Gram's set.

Hey Honestman - great job on brightening the Stones pics!
I can't believe how dark it is in the new footage.
Some other altamont footage I have seen (not out of GS movie) is much brighter....even amateur footage.

yeah know what you mean

maybe it has something to do with the type of film the person filming used or he didn't adjust the camera right as it got darker

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ProfessorWolf

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Eleanor Rigby

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Honestman

Quote
Eleanor Rigby
Burrito Bros footage is sensational!

Yes and I didn't knew like some of you that Mick and Keith were backstage during Gram's set.

Hey Honestman - great job on brightening the Stones pics!
I can't believe how dark it is in the new footage.
Some other altamont footage I have seen (not out of GS movie) is much brighter....even amateur footage.

yeah know what you mean

maybe it has something to do with the type of film the person filming used or he didn't adjust the camera right as it got darker

I also wonder if it was film just developed after being found.

I had a bunch of old film reels I found that we're several decades old and had them developed, they all came out dark like that.

Rolling Stones Altamont concert footage found in Library of Congress archives

The newly found reels of the notorious 1969 event near San Francisco were discovered in February 2020.


Library Of Congress

By Michael E. Ruane
January 8, 2022

When Library of Congress film expert Mike Mashon heard about newly found reels of Rolling Stones concert footage, he thought they were copies from a show the band did in London in 1969.

But when the silent, color film was sent to be digitized, his technicians contacted him, and said, “You gotta come see this,” he said.

The footage was not from the London concert that July. It was from the notorious show five months later at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, where one fan was killed, three others died and, many believe, the social revolution of the 1960s began its end.

“Every once in a while in a film archive you get this thrill of discovery,” Mashon said.

The films have never been publicly seen before, he said.

The free concert on Dec. 6, 1969, featured other rock superstars such as Santana, the Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The Grateful Dead were supposed to play, but backed out when they heard about the violence.

The show drew about 300,000 people, and lots of drugs and alcohol. Crowd control was handled by the Hells Angels motorcycle gang — a “constant and menacing presence” in the footage, Mashon said.

Fights quickly broke out. Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger was punched in the face shortly after he arrived. The Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin was slugged and knocked out.

Members of the Hells Angels beat concertgoers with pool cues. And an African American teenager who pulled a gun during a melee was stabbed to death.

“Gimme Shelter,” a famous 1970 documentary made by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, captured much of the chaos.

But none of the newly discovered film appears in that documentary, said Mashon, head of the library’s moving image section at its campus in Culpeper, Va.

“I don’t think there’s really anything in the film that adds to our understanding of the tragic events of Altamont,” he said. “But it’s definitely a new perspective …[and] a wonderful artifact to have of a time and place and an event.”

The footage, which shows hints of the mayhem, was discovered in February 2020, right before the coronavirus pandemic broke out in the United States, Mashon said. He unveiled the find in a library blog post on Tuesday.

“We genuinely think that this is what we call an orphan film,” he said. “If an owner emerges, certainly we’d be interested in hearing that. Somebody with proof. But as far as we know this film was abandoned.”

“If we had been able to track down a name we would have pursued that,” he said. “But there were no clues, and the fate of the person behind the camera that day is unknown.”

The 8mm film is on two reels, probably shot with a home movie camera by someone onstage. The footage is 26 minutes long. Whoever shot it later took it to be developed and never picked it up, Mashon said.

The first reel, filmed during the day, features Santana, the Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and the Flying Burrito Brothers.

There are close-ups of key members of those bands, and Jagger and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards can be seen watching in the background.

At one point the Hells Angels shove an intoxicated-looking bystander off the stage. There are shots of the vast crowd, and of fans dancing wildly to the music.

The second reel, shot at night, features the Rolling Stones.

The film quality is poor. Jagger is seen as he performs in semidarkness. (He tried in vain to calm the crowd during the fighting in front of the stage.) Other members of the band appear in the shadows. Light glints off drummer Charlie Watts’s cymbals.

Men in Hells Angels jackets mill about the stage. A man in the background looks overcome by the music, or by something else, as he runs his fingers through his hair. The camera pans across some worried-looking fans in front of the stage.

Not much else is clear.

The reel doesn’t capture the stabbing of 18-year-old Meredith Hunter Jr., which happened just off camera and is glimpsed in “Gimme Shelter.” (The concert’s other deaths reportedly were those of one fan who drowned in an irrigation canal and two others who were run over by a car.)

After the show, the footage was apparently taken to be developed at a company called Palmer Films in San Francisco. It was never picked up. “Why … I don’t know,” Mashon said.

When that firm was going out of business in the 1990s, noted film archivist and scholar Rick Prelinger acquired a huge batch of its reels for his collection.

In 2002, the Library of Congress acquired more than 200,000 reels from Prelinger, Mashon said. Experts are still sifting through them.

When the new reels turned up in February, 2020, they had been labeled “Stones in the Park.” Mashon said he thought they might be copies of the 1969 TV film called “The Stones in the Park,” about the band’s outdoor show in London on July 5, 1969.

Instead, they were about Altamont.

“I have a feeling that this film is going to show up in future rock-and-roll documentaries,” he said. “It’s too good. It really is some high-class footage. Whoever shot it did a great job.”

[www.washingtonpost.com]

Half-Hour of Lost Footage of Rolling Stones’ Altamont Festival Unveiled by Library of Congress

By Chris Willman
January 8, 2022


Library Of Congress

Nearly a half-hour of unseen 8mm footage of the Rolling Stones, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and other artists performing at Altamont has been recovered by the Library of Congress and published on its website, thanks to an unlikely find among 200,000 reels of film that were acquired 20 years ago.

The footage is silent and on the crude side by contemporary standards, and does not appear to have been shot by the documentary crew shooting the footage that ended up in the film “Gimme Shelter.” The portions that include the Stones’ nighttime performance are nearly too murky to make out, and there’s nothing in it related to the stabbing death of an audience member during that set that made Altamont go down in history.

Nonetheless, the daytime parts of the “home movie” will be fascinating to aficionados of late ’60s rock, offering close-up shots of some of the legends of that era from a position on or close to the stage, including glimpses of many artists that were never seen in the “Gimme Shelter” movie, caught in performance or just casually hanging out behind the stage.

According to a blog post on the Library of Congress’ website, the two reels newly put up for public viewing are believed to be “an orphan work, in this case abandoned at Palmer Labs by whoever shot it. They just never picked it up.”

Their acquisition dates back to 1996, when archivist Rick Prelinger bought 200,000 reels from Palmer Labs, a San Francisco film processing company, as it was going out of business, with no other interest than eventually scouring the non-pro footage for their interest as ephemeral films. In 2002, the collection was bought by the Library of Congress, which announced at the time that it “would take several years… to provide access to these films,” though archivists now note that it’s been 19 years and they’re still being gone through.

Recently, according to the blog, a technician came across two reels of 8mm reversal positive footage with handwriting on the film leader that bore the words “Stones in the Park.” That title was marked down in the inventory, and Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image Section, became interested when he saw it, imagining that it might be a home movie of the Stones’ Hyde Park concert in 1969. The 2K digitization process revealed it actually was from Altamont and contained shots of multiple acts on the bill, including Santana and the Jefferson Airplane as well as the aforementioned groups.

“Although the footage is silent,” Mashon writes,” we were all thrilled to see close-up footage of concert performers who were cut from the (Maysles brothers’) film, such as Carlos Santana and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. (CNSY wasn’t pleased with their performance and refused to let the Maysles include them.) It was especially great to see Gram Parsons fronting the Flying Burrito Brothers, since you only see the back of his head in ‘Gimme Shelter.’ Even better, there are good shots of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards off-stage watching him perform!”

The footage also includes plenty of crowd shots, including scenes where the air appears to be filled with mysterious projectiles. A commenter on the blog writes an explanation: “At 10:22 of the video those flying objects were plastic coffee can lids. We hitchhiked there and in the guys’ van were bags full of lids. We were far up the hill and started flying the frisbees into the crowd.”

Mashon told the Washington Post they still hope to learn who shot the footage, and to solve the mystery of how he or she had such good stage access to capture the apparently amateur footage. “If an owner emerges, certainly we’d be interested in hearing that. Somebody with proof. But as far as we know this film was abandoned,” he said. “If we had been able to track down a name we would have pursued that. But there were no clues, and the fate of the person behind the camera that day is unknown.”

Watch the 25 minutes of footage here.

[variety.com]

Love the fottage! Have been watchig it several times and it sertainly gives a feeling to how it must have been to be there. Altamont might be one of the most important concert they've ever done.