Altamont Free Concert - Security

Security

By some accounts, the Hells Angels were hired as security by the management of the Rolling Stones, on the recommendation of the Grateful Dead (who had previously used the Angels for security at performances without incident), for $500 worth of beer — a story that has been denied by parties who were directly involved. According to Rolling Stones' road manager Sam Cutler, "the only agreement there ever was ... the Angels would make sure nobody tampered with the generators, but that was the extent of it. But there was no way 'They're going to be the police force' or anything like that. That's all bollocks." The deal was made at a meeting between Cutler, Grateful Dead manager Rock Scully, and Pete Knell, a Hells Angel, from the Angels' San Francisco chapter. According to Cutler, the arrangement was that all the bands lined up for the free concert were supposed to share the $500 cost for beer to pay the Angels, " the person who paid it was me, and I never got it back, to this day.”

Hells Angels member Sweet William recalled this exchange between Cutler and himself at a meeting prior to the concert, where Cutler had asked them to provide security:

"We don't police things. We're not a security force. We go to concerts to enjoy ourselves and have fun."

"Well, what about helping people out - you know, giving directions and things?"

"Sure, we can do that."

When Cutler asked how they would like to be paid, William replied, "we like beer." In the documentary Gimme Shelter Sonny Barger states that the Hells Angels were not interested in policing the event, and that organizers had told him that he and his fellow Angels would be required to do little more than sit on the edge of the stage and drink beer and just make sure there weren't any murders or rapes going on. Other accounts also state that the initial arrangement was for the Hells Angels to watch over the equipment, but that Cutler later moved them, and their beer, near the stage to placate them or to protect the stage.

In 2009, Cutler explained his decision to use the Angels. “I was talking with them, because I was interested in the security of my band - everyone’s security, for that matter. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. They were the only people who were strong and together. because it was descending into absolute chaos. Who was going to stop it?” Grateful Dead manager Rock Scully said if the Angels hadn't been on the stage, "that whole crowd could have easily passed out, and rolled down onto the stage. There was no barrier."

Stefan Ponek, who hosted a December 7, 1969, KSAN-FM radio broadcast of a four-hour, "day after" post-concert telephone call-in forum (and who also helped organize the event), provided the following for the 2000 release of the Gimme Shelter DVD: "What we learned in the broadcast was pretty much startling: These guys - the Angels - had been hired and paid with $500 of beer, on a truck with ice, to essentially bring in the Stones and keep people off the stage. That was the understanding, that was the deal. And it seemed like there was not a lot of disagreement over that; that seemed to emerge as a fact, because it became rather apparent that the Stones didn't know what kind of people they were dealing with."

The Gimme Shelter DVD contains extensive excerpts from that broadcast. A Hells Angels member who identified himself as "Pete, from Hells Angels San Francisco" (most likely Pete Knell, president of the San Francisco chapter), says "They offered us $500 worth of beer (to) go there and take care of the stage...we took this $500 worth of beer to do it." Sonny Barger, who also called into the KSAN forum, states: "We were told by one of the (other Hells Angels) clubs if we showed up down there (and) sat on the stage and drink some beer..that the Stones manager or somebody had bought for us." In his lengthy call, Barger mentions the beer deal yet again: "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."

Emmett Grogan (founder of the radical community-action group, the Diggers), who was intimately involved in the organization of the event (especially at the two earlier-planned venues), confirmed the $500 beer arrangement on that same KSAN forum with Ponek.

"Pete" also tells host Ponek that the Angels were hired by Cutler due to some rowdy, anxious on-stage incidents during the Stones' Oakland and Miami concerts weeks earlier that Fall 1969 tour. As security guards, Pete says "We ain't into that security", but they agreed after the beer offer. He said other than being told to "just keep people off the stage", Cutler gave the Hells Angels very little specific instructions for stage security: "They didn't say nothing to us about any of that." And although the Angels are not security guards, "If we say we're going to do something, we do it. If we decide to do it, it's done. No matter what, how far we have to go to do it." The similar lack of detailed security instructions by the concert's management was also mentioned by Barger during his telephone call-in.

Altamont Speedway owner Dick Carter hired hundreds of professional, plainclothes security guards, ostensibly more for the purpose of protecting his property rather than for the safety and well-being of the concertgoers. Barger mentions these guards, as identified by their wearing of "little white buttons".

Political scientist and cultural critic James Miller believes that since Ken Kesey had invited the Hells Angels to one of his outdoor Acid Tests, the hippies had viewed the bikers unrealistically, idealizing them as "noble savages" and thus "outlaw brothers of the counterculture". The bikers had provided security at Grateful Dead shows without reported violence. Further, Miller maintains, the Rolling Stones may have been misled by their experience with a British contingent of self-described "Hells Angels", a non-outlaw group of admirers of American biker-gear, who had provided nonviolent security at a free concert the Stones had given earlier that year in Hyde Park, London. Cutler, however, denies ever having had any illusions about the true nature of Californian Hells Angels. "That’s another canard foisted on the world by the press", he said, but Rock Scully remembers explaining to the Stones what the 'real' Angels were like after watching the Hyde Park concert.