00:00The Concert That Killed the Dream, How Altamont Changed Live Music Forever
00:04Beer for security seemed like a reasonable trade, until the Hells Angels started swinging pool cues.
00:11The Altamont Speedway Free Festival, on December 6th, 1969, was supposed to be Woodstock's West Coast sequel,
00:19with 300,000 people gathering for free music from the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana.
00:25Instead, it became the moment counterculture's utopian bubble burst, leaving four dead and an industry permanently changed.
00:32Your modern festival experience, from professional security to medical tents, exists because of what went catastrophically wrong that December day.
00:41The Rolling Stones management hired the Oakland Hells Angels for security, paying them in beer, a decision that seemed bohemian until the violence started.
00:48During Jefferson Airplane's set, singer Marty Ballin was knocked unconscious by a Hells Angel while trying to stop a fight.
00:57The Angels used pool cues and fists to control crowds, creating more problems than they solved.
01:02Violence peaked during Under My Thumb when 18-year-old Meredith Hunter approached the stage with a revolver,
01:08and was fatally stabbed by Hells Angel Alan Passero.
01:11The Maisel's brothers' cameras captured everything for their documentary.
01:16Gimme Shelter, preserving the moment when Rock's peace and love mythology collided with reality.
01:22Professional concert management was born from Altamont's ashes.
01:26Altamont forced a complete rethinking of crowd control, emergency services, and security training.
01:31Insurance companies began demanding professional oversight, ending the era of amateur festival organization.
01:37The disaster accelerated the shift toward corporate concert promotion, with companies like Bill Graham Presents,
01:44establishing safety standards that became industry benchmarks.
01:48Today's festival safety protocols exist because 300,000 people learned the hard way that peace, love, and music
01:54require professional planning to survive contact with reality.
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