Situation Degenerates
Although peaceful at first, over the course of the day, the mood of both the crowd and the Angels became progressively agitated, intoxicated and violent. The Angels had been drinking their free beer all day in front of the stage, and most were highly drunk. Fueled by LSD and amphetamines, the crowd had also become antagonistic and unpredictable, attacking each other, the Angels, and the performers. A Jagger biographer, Anthony Scaduto, in Mick Jagger: Everybody's Lucifer, wrote that the only time the crowd seemed to calm down to any degree was during a set by the country-rocking Flying Burrito Brothers. By the time the Rolling Stones took stage in the early evening, the mood had taken a decidedly ugly turn as numerous fights had erupted between Angels and crowd members and within the crowd itself. Denise Jewkes of local San Francisco rock band the Ace of Cups, six months pregnant, was hit in the head by an empty beer bottle thrown from the crowd and suffered a skull fracture. The Angels proceeded to arm themselves with sawn-off pool cues and motorcycle chains to drive the crowd further back from the stage.
After the crowd (perhaps accidentally) toppled one of the Angels' motorcycles, the Angels became even more aggressive, including toward the performers. Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane was punched in the head and knocked unconscious by an Angel during the band's set, as seen in the documentary film Gimme Shelter. The Grateful Dead had been scheduled to play between Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and The Rolling Stones, but after hearing about the Balin incident from Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, they refused to play and left the venue, citing the quickly degenerating security situation.
The Rolling Stones waited until sundown to perform. Stanley Booth stated that part of the reason for the delay was that Bill Wyman had missed the helicopter ride to the venue. When they began their set, a tightly-packed group of between 4,000 and 5,000 jammed to the very edge of the stage, and many attempted to climb onto it.
Read more about this topic: Altamont Free Concert
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