Gimme Shelter: The Rolling Stones at Altamont

On December 6th, 1969 the Rolling Stones gave a free concert at Altamont Speedway in California. The concert is most remembered for the violent altercations that took place throughout the day which came to a head when a man was stabbed to death by a member of the Hell’s Angels who was working security. If the crisis at Altamont came to its climax within the world of the Rolling Stones it’s valuable to explain it in that context. The Maysles’ documentary Gimme Shelter composes a reality of the concert that benefits from speaking the language of the Stones. Because of the use of direct-cinema, not only do the title and most of the dialogue belong to the band members, but the music provides much of the narrative. As Stanley Booth wrote in his 1969 book, and as was published in the DVD insert-booklet for the Criterion Collection edition of Gimme Shelter, the film “had to present the songs the Stones did on that tour without too much distortion of order or repetition” (Booklet 12). The resulting question then becomes: how do the tones and lyrics of the songs deliberately develop the narrative structure of the film? Amy Taubin, film critic The Village Voice, wrote, “…there are a multiplicity of truths in Gimme Shelter; putting them together is up to us” (Booklet 8). In using the songs of the band as a primary historical and structural narrative Gimme Shelter’s overarching theme attempts to protect the Rolling Stones from blame for the conflicts at Altamont.

“Everybody seems to be ready, are you ready? For the first time in three years, the greatest rock’n'roll band in the world, the Rolling Stones!” introduces Sam Cutler, the Stones’ road manager, at the November 28th concert at Madison Square Garden. “Oh, New York City, you talk a lot. Let’s have a look at you,” says Mick Jagger as he approaches the mic to start the show. Not only will we have a look at the New York City audience but we will get to ‘have a look’ at the Rolling Stones. Going into the film, most audience members expect a murder to take place somewhere in the narrative. The job of the documentary is then to provide a route to get to that moment. “I was born in a cross-fire hurricane/And I howled at my ma in the driving rain/But it’s all right now, in fact, it’s a gas,” sings Mick Jagger in ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’ The film too is born in the cross-fire hurricane of the chaos at Altamont and the truth of the matter. By juxtaposing the concert footage with the editing footage the Maysles show they plan on exploring the immediate experience with the retrospective perspective. The conflict is now obviously a question of whether the Rolling Stones were the driving force in the violence at Altamont.

On the day following the Altamont show, radio KSAN in San Francisco ran a four hour program hosted by DJ Stefan Ponek with interviews and call-ins from people involved with the show. A small sampling of this can be seen following the opening of the film, in which Charlie Watts is watching the editing process and listening to clips from the radio show. The Maysles make a direct comment using the voice of the Stones in response to this by choosing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ as the next song. “When I’m drivin’ in my car/And that man comes on the radio/He’s tellin’ me more and more/About some useless information/Supposed to fire my imagination,” sings Mick Jagger. Some guests on the show blamed the Stones, some blamed the crowd, and some blamed the Hell’s Angels. Sonny Barger, the head of the Oakland Hell’s Angels at the time, wrote in Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club about the Stones’ egos and the crowds’ disrespect for their bikes. An excerpt from this book appears in the DVD booklet and is representative of what Sonny said on the radio show. The crowd “really started messing with our bikes,” Sonny wrote. “Big mistake. That’s when we entered to crowd and grabbed some of the assholes vandalizing our bikes and beat the fuck out of them” (Booklet 32). Even if this is true, the film does not fully explore this situation. Most of what we see in the second half of the film portrays the Hell’s Angels as the enemy attacking the crowd and the Stones as innocent of all charges.

Gimme Shelter makes an indirect reference to the atmosphere of innocence from another free concert earlier that year, held at Hyde Park in London, in which the Stones played a successful show using the English Hell’s Angels. The mood was sullen due to the recent death of Brian Jones, the guitarist who had originally conceived of the Stones and had left the band only a few months before (Wyman 328). As Stanley Booth described it, in conjunction with the “famously civilized” British audience there wasn’t much need for the English Hell’s Angels, which were “harmless children compared to the California Angels” (Booklet 12). The documentary alludes to this atmosphere about twenty minutes into narrative. “Gimme Shelter… is a masterpiece of restraint and understatement… it begins with a single moment of innocence-the Madison Square Garden Show,” wrote Amy Taubin (Booklet 6). “You gotta move, child/You gotta move/Oh, when the Lord gets ready/You gotta move,” plays over images of the Stones getting into cars and driving away form their hotel. ‘You Gotta Move’ challenges the images in the scene after it by contrasting progress with ‘the boys sitting around having a good ol’ time.’ “Cousin Minnie says, ‘how delicious!’” says Keith Richards with a southern dialect as he pulls what appears to be a paper advertisement for some sort of food out of his breast pocket. He laughs and someone off screen says, “ya’ll come back now, ya hear?” Jagger then sings in an overemphasized blues accent, “You gaht te mooove,” and laughs at himself. But “You Gotta Move,” is also a solemn blues song that could be playing on the mood created in Brian Jones’ death. Both images describe the Stones as innocent victims; artists to make the best of the situation. This tone provides a defense for the Stones throughout the duration of the film and a defense against what Taubin describes as “the dominant tendency… to mythologize the event as the nail in the coffin of the ’60s, and Jagger as the Lucifer who called it into being” (Booklet 6).

The next scene features the band sitting around in the studio listening to ‘Wild Horses’. It again reflects on the innocence of the Stones. The first line, “childhood living is easy to do,” plays as Charlie Watts’ thought-filled stare is captured by the camera. Ian “Stu” Stewart sits on the couch with Keith Richards, who is mouthing, “I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie/I have my freedom but I don’t have much time/Faith has been broken, tears must be cried,” after which the camera focuses on his tapping foot. Mick Jagger waves his hands with the song’s end and politely applauds. Taubin describes the scene as, “just a bunch of rock stars listening to themselves, trying to fight off the self-consciousness they feel when the camera gets close” (Booklet 8). This snapshot of the Stones puts them in a very warm light in which the emotion of the artist is significant.

“Ev’rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy / ‘Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy”. Though ‘Street Fighting Man’ was written by Mick Jagger in response to the 1968 Paris Riots, its themes also resonate with the Chicago riots at the Democratic National Convention, which happened only a few weeks before the single was released (Jagger 119). A newspaper clipping in Rolling With the Stones reads, “many stations have refused to play it and the Chicago stations banned it altogether last week because they feared it could incite even more violence in the city” (Wyman 309). ‘Street Fighting Man’ marks the halfway point in Gimme Shelter. It makes the transition between Madison Square Garden and Altamont. Keith Richards wrote in Rave magazine, “Subversive? Of course we’re subversive” (Wyman 309). In this regard the song functions to create some ambiguity as to the Rolling Stones’ involvement in the violence at Altamont. Often times, as Stanley Booth wrote, this ambiguity was turned into the thought that “violence at Altamont, being completely unexpected, came afterwards to seem inevitable” (Booklet 12). Hearing ‘Street Fighting Man’ live would have been a unique experience for the audiences. It was originally recorded for 1968’s Beggars Banquet using two acoustic guitars and a sitar played through a cassette recorder and a 1930’s toy drum kit (Jagger 118). In contrast, when the song is played on stage with an electric guitar the tone stresses the sharpness of the lyrics. Though Jagger wrote in 2003 that ‘Street Fighting Man’ “is a funny song to play on stage in an era when you don’t fight in the street any more,” the Altamont situation the Maysles set up very much reflects an electric undercurrent of violence (Jagger 119). The ambiguity of using ‘Street Fighting Man’ will find its defense at the end of the film.

By the time the Rolling Stones took the stage at Altamont in the film there has already been twenty minutes of escalating chaos through footage of the crowd, the Hell’s Angels, and the other bands. The Angels had even punched out Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin as he tried to stop the beating of a man on stage (Wyman 351). The first song the Maysles chose to use was ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. Much like ‘Street Fighting Man’, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ discusses turmoil and revolution. “I stuck around at St. Petersburg/When I saw it was a-time for a change/Killed the czar and his ministers/Anastasia screamed in vain.” It would seem as if the Maysles were trying to emphasize the provocative nature of the lyrics as a cause for the fighting. “Always something very funny happens when we start that number,” says Jagger after the fighting subsides momentarily. Though the film does not show it, the set began with the same song as the Madison Square Garden show: ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ (Wyman 352). In reality there were a handful of songs that took place before ‘Sympathy’. By cutting these out the Maysles escalate the violence much more quickly. As a result, the Stones are implicated to a higher degree than the film has previously alluded. But the song’s title and the final refrains help relieve them of charges: “So if you meet me/Have some courtesy/Have some sympathy, and some taste/Use all your well-learned politesse/Or I’ll lay your soul to waste…” Perhaps, had the crowd or Angel’s used some “politesses” there might not have been a conflict. If the devil is the Rolling Stones the Maysles try to invoke sympathy from the audience.

“So horrible,” comments Mick Jagger after watching the footage of Meredith Hunter being stabbed by a member of the Hell’s Angels. Unlike the film the show did not actually end following the stabbing. In the correct timeline of the situation the Stones played a bit of ‘Under My Thumb’ before a first fight broke out. They began playing it again but had to stop a second time after another fight broke out. Meredith Hunter was stabbed during this fight. Because of the confusing situation the Stones knew no more than that someone in the audience had a gun and was stopped from using it. Without knowing the gravity of the situation, Jagger pleaded that everyone “please relax and sit down… [so] we can continue…” (Wyman 354) Stanley Booth wrote, “We didn’t know whether Hunter had been killed, wounded, or what, but the mood seemed to change; it was as if the atmosphere had been purged. The Stones did “Under My Thumb” with no interruptions” (Booklet 19). The last line of the scene concludes with Jagger singing, “Ah, ah, say it’s alright.” Though it was far from alright, there was a definite change in tone in the film that reflected the ambiguity of the concert. We’ve now had the moment we’ve been anticipating the entire film and just like the Stones we don’t know where to go next. Coming into the film with the knowledge that a man was murdered, it would have reflected poorly on the Stones to show them playing for as long as they did after the murder; especially when there is no narration to explain that they had no way of knowing.

As the end approaches Gimme Shelter has to clear the Stones of the charges their own lyrics have brought against them. The concert footage in the film quickly concludes with the Stones finishing ‘Street Fighting Man’. The Maysles have Jagger’s lyrics ask a question to viewing audience: “Well then what can a poor boy do/Except to sing for a rock ‘n’ roll band?” It is not the music that is at fault because the music provides sanctuary. The best way for the Maysels to protect the Rolling Stones is to end on a still frame of Mick Jagger as the lyrics to ‘Gimme Shelter‘ explain to the audience that “Oh, a storm is threat’ning/My very life today/If I don’t get some shelter.” The film, being titled after this song, provides the final word how best to perceive the entirety of the situation: the Maysles brothers’ documentary is a place of refuge for the Rolling Stones.

Works Cited:

Booklet from Criterion Collection DVD. Taubin, Amy, et al. Gimme Shelter. The Criterion Collection DVD 2003.

Gimme Shelter. Dir. Albert and David Maysles. Maysles Films, 1970. The Criterion Collection DVD 2003.

Jagger, Mick and Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood. According to The Rolling Stones. Edited by Dora Lowenstein and Philip Dodd. Chronicle Books, San Francisco. 2003.