Wazzup! Did you have a good weekend? Sorry for the delay in writing a review, I worked a lot this last week, so I didn't have tons of time and energy to devote to writing. Also, they pulled the other version of Troll 3 from streaming, so I can't get to that right now. But I will eventually! So until then, we're going to talk about a documentary film I've wanted to watch for quite some time. 1970's Rolling Stones concert documentary, Gimme Shelter.
I love The Rolling Stones. I grew up listening to Oldies Radio, back when Oldies Radio was music from 1955-72ish. Back when it was about 65% Motown and 35% blues-based rock and roll. The kind of station that focused way more on some (not all) of the Top 40 rock songs from that era, the earlier recordings of The Beatles and Rolling Stones, and covers of Bob Dylan but never Dylan himself. Later on in life, even though I started exploring music much more, there was a period of time when I wouldn't buy an album if I didn't recognize less than two songs. "If it's any good, it will be on their Greatest Hits," I used to say to myself. God, I want to punch that younger version of me. There were some albums that started to wear me out of this awful habit, The Beatles' White Album being one. Queen's Innuendo and Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection are others. But Exile on Main St by the Rolling Stones was the final one that broke that habit for good. After hemming and hawing for over a year, I finally bought it. I was captivated. The music was raw, dirty, sleazy, I couldn't get enough! They used profanity on the record! I had never heard Rocks Off, Rip This Joint, Sweet Virginia, Loving Cup, Shine a Light... but then I wanted to hear nothing more. In 2019, while I was making decent money for once, I treated my brother and myself to see the Stones at the Rose Bowl. It's been a long-running joke since the 1980s that "this might be the last tour." But as the years go on, we are getting closer and closer to that "last tour" and I made the call that we needed to see them now. Great decision. An amazing live show! And since then, Charlie Watts has sadly passed away. I'm so glad we got to see him play. Safe to say, the Stones are in my all-time Top Ten musical performers, I love them.
My love affair with them aside, the whole purpose of this film was a complete, foolish disaster. I'm going to give you a very condensed, cliff notes version of what happened. So essentially, the Stones were inspired to do a free concert in San Francisco. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others did free concerts in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco all the time. It was going to be the Woodstock of the West Coast. The Stones got both those bands, as well as some other bay area artists, to sign up for it. Well in a press conference, Mick Jagger drops the bombshell that they're going to do a free concert in downtown San Francisco on December 6, 1969. I believe this is the first time that SF heard about it because the city basically responded with "The hell you are." The rationale being that, while the park can contain Jefferson Airplane fans, it wouldn't be able to handle the massive crowd that the Stones would draw. Can you imagine 100,000-300,000 fans descending onto downtown San Francisco? It would have been a total disaster! More so than it ended up being. So they moved the venue to Sears Point Raceway in Napa, which is where I used to attend NASCAR races in the 90s with my Dad. I can't tell what the exact official reason was, but Sears Point backed out not long before the concert. It was because of money or fear of the raceway being damaged or something or other. Probably all that. Anyway, Altamont Speedway in Livermore stepped up and offered their track. So about three days before the concert, crews had to disassemble the stage and lighting rigs they had already set up, drive them 80 miles to Altamont, and set it up there. And here's where we get into our first issue. Not counting things like gigs in bars and small places like that, every professional concert I've been to has a stage around 8-10 feet off the ground. They always have a guardrail keeping the fans on one side. And between the guardrail and stage is a small empty space for security. This is to ensure that no one can get onto the stage. At Altamont, there was no such guardrail or space. And the stage was four feet off the ground. That's because it was designed to be used at Sears Point, on a hill. But at Altamont, it was in a valley. Fans were right there, right where the performers were.
The second horrendously bad idea was that they didn't hire security for the event. Jagger hated cops. So they decided to hire the Hells Angels instead. What the hell. The Grateful Dead had used them as security before, and it went alright. But not this time. They weren't paid in money, but $500 in beer ($4000 in beer in today's money, that's a lot of booze in both decades). Remember how I said that, in a proper concert, police will be in that space between the fans and stage? And sometimes, if you look carefully, you can see them hiding just off the stage, just in case. Not at Altamont. The Angels were sitting and standing all over the stage, constantly walking in front of the performers. That's when they weren't getting into fights with fans, beating them with pool cues that they brought as weapons. It was a mess.
Normally I make little jokes in these captions, but I'm not making fun of any Hells Angels
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB
Now, there are some good moments to this film. It essentially falls into three segments. The first is the Stones tour before Altamont. And there is some great footage of them doing parts of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "You Gotta Move," "Brown Sugar," "Love in Vain," "Honkey Tonk Women," and "Street Fighting Man." We also get to see Ike and Tina Turner perform "I've Been Loving You Too Long" at Madison Square Garden. Jagger looks iconic on stage, wearing an Uncle Sam hat for some of the footage.
Mick Jagger Wants You! I don't know, I couldn't think of anything better. Leave me your best funny captions for this photo in the comments.
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB
We also get to see the band at the famous Muscle Shoals recording studio, listening to the final mix of "Wild Horses" for the first time. It's a mesmerizing scene, watching them just zone out to one of their greatest songs. The part that I find hilarious about this whole thing is that the Stones are dressed exactly like you'd expect them to be. Silk shirts, leather pants, Jagger has a scarf so long it drags on the ground. They look like rock stars. How they're staying in a Holiday Inn. And, maybe Holiday Inn was considered high-class in 1969, but I also have to think... how could they not afford something better? The filmmakers, Albert and David Maysles, actually filmed the Stones concert at Madison Square Garden, which is where much of the pre-Altamont concert footage comes from. They asked if they could join in with the rest of the tour, and the Stones agreed.
The biggest complaint I have about the documentary is the overall lack of information. I knew a little bit about Altamont going into the film, but when it was over, I had a ton of questions that came up while watching, that were not addressed or explained clearly. The documentary is highly raw, meaning they don't have talking heads segments or infoboxes. So I had to go and do research and read about the show to get a better picture of what happened. I guess that if the worst part of a movie is that inspires me to read more about the subject, it's pretty good. But still, I feel like these things could have been easily addressed in the runtime of the movie.
There was some footage in the documentary shot before the concert, this is kind of the second part of the film. There is some footage included of the Stones' attorney, Melvin Belli, on speakerphone with the management of Altamont raceway, discussing how to make the concert happen. There's a significant amount of footage shown of fans arriving as well, it's early in the day, and people are laughing and having a good time. But it gets bad soon, as apparently there were a lot of drugs and laced wine going around, so people who weren't expecting to get high got super high. You see some people having bad trips here. We're also treated to some nudity, both of the male and female kind, throughout the show.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for your main event of the evening!"
Image by Paille via Wikipedia
The last third of the movie is the Altamont concert itself. The show kicks off with a kickass live version of "Six Days on the Road" performed by The Flying Burrito Brothers. This is about the only part of the concert they showed where people are having a good time, dancing, and the music is rocking. It wouldn't last. They soon segue into Jefferson Airplane. God. In further research into the concert, I learned that this incident was started when someone in the crowd knocked over a Hell's Angels motorcycle. Well, a fight breaks out in front of the stage. Marty Balin of the Airplane jumps off the stage to sort out the fight and gets knocked out by an Angel for his troubles. Rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner got on the mic to sarcastically thank the Angels for knocking out his singer. This prompts another Angel to grab a different mic and basically tell Kantner to shut up. Then Grace Slick gets on a mic and tells everyone to cool down and "keep your bodies off each other unless you intend love." We don't see any footage of Santana or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Reportedly though, Stephen Stills was stabbed in the leg multiple times by an Angel. That's not shown in the documentary, though. What IS shown is the Grateful Dead showing up, hearing about what happened to Balin, and then decided to peace out and leave. Jerry Garcia ended up being the most level-headed out of everyone. And him being the one who suggested the Hell's Angels in the first place!
Now we come to the most infamous part of the film, concert, and the unofficial end of the hippie sixties. The Rolling Stones' set. The set ended up being a complete catastrophe. When they get to "Sympathy for the Devil" all hell starts to break loose. The Stones have to stop the set, multiple times, as fights break out in front of the stage. Jagger keeps trying to get on the mic and calm people down. But a few songs later, during "Under My Thumb," another fight breaks out. This time a black concertgoer, Meredith Hunter, gets stabbed to death to death by a Hell's Angel. And it's all, pretty clearly, caught on film. You can see Hunter throughout the show, wearing a green suit. The reasoning from the Angels was that Hunter had a gun and fired it off during the set. And I'll be honest, I couldn't tell from the footage alone if he had a gun and if he fired it off. The area he was at when the incident occurs isn't well lit. This is another thing that isn't really in the doc, but Hunter's sister, girlfriend, and friends did confirm he brought a gun to the show, later. At first, you might be asking yourself, why would he do such a thing. Well, remember, this was 1969, he's a black man, and the area where the concert took place (Livermore, California) was still fairly racist at the time. He brought it for self-defense. Now as to the gun firing, again, I don't know. No one can really tell for sure and once again, the footage isn't clean enough to know for sure. The Stones didn't realize until after the show that someone was killed. They continued playing, fearful that stopping would cause a full-scale riot, which honestly... after seeing this crowd in the film, it probably would have been worse if they had stopped.
There isn't much they show in the film, post-concert. You see people leaving the venue in the morning, while the mournful bellows of the song "Gimme Shelter" playing over it. At various points throughout the film, they show the reactions of Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger to different parts of the concert footage. Quite possibly the most powerful moment of the whole thing is seeing Jagger watch the stabbing, and the look on his face that screams "holy crap, what the hell did we do." There is also a bit shown the day after, with KSAN radio talking about the events that transpired, which is again interrupted by a Hells Angel. Sonny Barger (a famous enough Angel that he has his own Wikipedia page) calls into the station to explain "I ain't no cop, I ain't never going to ever pretend to be no cop. I didn't go there to police nothing, man. They told me if I could sit on the edge of the stage so nobody could climb over me, I could drink beer until the show was over. And that's what I went there to do." That should tell you everything you need to know.
Even today, in 2022, Sonny Barger is not someone I'd want to mess with. That's not a joke, that's a true fact.
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB
Altamont has been described as a transition point between the end of the peace-loving, hippie, optimistic 1960s and the more cynical, depressing 1970s. Rolling Stone magazine famously wrote "rock and roll's all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong." Don McLean later wrote lyrics about the event in his song, "American Pie." "And as I watched him on the stage/My hands were clenched in fists of rage/No angel born in hell/Could break that Satan's spell."
At the end of the day, it's very easy to blame the Stones for what went wrong. They made all of the bad decisions that ended up in this disaster. But honestly, I gotta level blame at whoever let them make these decisions. Some person or group of people allowed the drug and alcohol-fueled Rolling Stones to make these calls. No one stepped in and said, "No, you aren't allowing the Hell's Angels to provide security." But that's sadly the way the world works. Money talks. And sadly, sometimes people lose their lives because of it.
Gimme Shelter opened to a very limited theatrical run on December 6th, 1970, one year to the day of Altamont. It ended up getting another, wider release 30 years later on August 11th, 2000. The domestic box office is $256,094, but box office numbers for a film like this are more difficult to categorize as good or bad. This is a documentary of the old school kind, it was designed to inform, not rake in ticket sales. The only other interesting piece of trivia I can really find is that George Lucas was one of the camera operators at Altamont. However, his camera jammed early, and nothing he shot was used in the movie.
The filmmakers, Albert and David Maysles, along with their co-director Charlotte Zwerin, would do more documentary work together and apart. Probably the most well-known thing the Maysles brothers did, other than Gimme Shelter, was probably 1975's Grey Gardens. That Lucas kid went on to have a moderately successful career, doing a movie about WWII fighter pilots and one about hot rods and muscle cars. Oh, and Captain EO.
Gimme Shelter is presented in a different kind of way, from what you might normally expect. It comes from an era when documentaries were just raw footage. I mean, it's edited, but there are no voice-overs, no interviews, no infoboxes, nothing like that. It simply exists to just tell the story of what happened, in as much of an open and honest way as possible. And again, while I would have liked more information, it's refreshing to see the information presented in such a raw format. This is simply trying to tell a story, nothing more.
Now, I don't think flashy, stylistic documentaries are necessarily a bad thing. 1973's F for Fake, for instance, weaves a compelling story in a very creative manner. As does 2008's Man on Wire, which is one of my favorite films of all time. They all have music cues, talking heads, reenactments, and the whole nine yards. They are movies, attempting to tell a true story, in an entertaining fashion. But that's just it, they are MOVIES, and a lot of the "documentaries" produced over the last 20-25 years tend to take it too far.
I'm thinking of the 2020 Netflix "documentary" series, Tiger King. I watched the first episode and stopped because I knew how it was going to go. I knew that Joe Exotic would be presented as, if not a traditional "good guy," then as the outlandish and quirky owner of a tiger farm, who is so over the top that you can't help but love him and feel bad for him. I knew everyone watching would be convinced that Carole Baskin murdered her husband, without the documentary producing a single shred of evidence to support it. And I was right on both counts. I didn't anticipate that they would leave so much of Joe's bad behavior on the cutting room floor, though it doesn't surprise me. Let's ignore that he's a racist, animal abuser who sells tiger bones and that his tigers were fed horses that people donated to the farm. Oh, and he also once faked having cancer, which is ironic because he has cancer for real now. Joe Exotic is human garbage and Carole Baskin, while I won't say she's a saint, didn't kill her husband.
But who cares! Journalistic integrity be damned! You got a second Netflix season, a more fictional Hulu drama, and Nicholas Cage wants to play Joe in a film. You can either die rich or die with integrity. I know what I'm choosing, $$$$$
Image by Netflix via IMDB
But that little rant aside, the difference between Tiger King and Gimme Shelter is that the Joe Exotic show (and many current documentaries flooding streaming media) aren't meant to educate. You're not supposed to learn anything from Tiger King or see how your world is shaped by these events. It's a story with cooky characters that is edited and crafted so as to entertain you. Harlan County, USA this is not. But Gimme Shelter, while not as traditionally "entertaining," is designed to inform you about what happens when excess leads to foolishness. It exists as a reminder for Meredith Hunter, who was murdered. The events of Altamont were not just one bad idea, but a series of them. And unfortunately, they lead to four people dead.
I liked this movie. It was informative and powerful. The non-Altamont concert footage was great, some people live shots of the Stones about to enter their peak as performers. The Altamont footage is sad, disturbing, and real. There is a level of authenticity that you don't get with most documentaries. The only negative I can level at it is, again, the lack of contextual information regarding the events that led to this tragedy. If you go into this, not knowing anything about the concert, you will leave with many questions.
Gotta love the "what do I do with my arm" positions whilst making out
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB
This is all my opinion, of course. You should watch it and let me know what you thought, JustWatch will tell you where it's streaming. On a lighter conversation topic, what are your favorite Stones songs? Or are you more of a Beatles person? Or do you hate all music recorded pre-2018? Let me know in the comments!
Next time, it's back to the 90s. We're gonna do 1997's comedy For Richer or Poorer, staring two iconic 90s comedians, Tim Allen and Kristy Alley. Unless they restream Troll 3, in which case, expect some hot Contimation .7 action! See ya later, homies!
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