Were four babies really born at The Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont Free Concert?
The tragedy that befell the Altamont Free Concert on December 6th, 1969, has etched itself into the American popular consciousness as a devastating bookend to a decade that promised peace, love, and a new dawn of utopian brotherhood.
Following a tumultuous period of chaotic social unrest, Vietnam’s nightly bloody news broadcasts, and the grisly murders of Charles Manson and his Family’s summer of terror in LA, the festival breakdown and subsequent fatal stabbing of Meredith Hunter has rendered ‘Altamont’ as a byword for the dashed dreams of the hippie generation. What makes this calamitous episode in California so remarkable is that four babies are alleged to have been born amid Altamont’s violent chaos.
Initially conceived as a West Coast answer to Woodstock, the free concert was created by members of Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, eager to mark the vital musical upheaval taking place in San Francisco with their own lauded, countercultural Mecca. When plans to situate the festival in the city’s Golden Gate Park fell through late in the game, desperation led them to Almeada County’s giant speedway. Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick recalls in her ’80 biography: “The vibes were bad. Something was very peculiar, not particularly bad, just real peculiar. It was that kind of hazy, abrasive and unsure day. I had expected the loving vibes of Woodstock but that wasn’t coming at me. This was a whole different thing.”
Due to criticism for their ’69 tour ticket prices, The Rolling Stones agreed to headline, a major coup for the festival, co-organiser Spencer Dryden claiming “next to The Beatles they were the biggest rock and roll band in the world, and we wanted them to experience what we were experiencing in San Francisco.”
This good fortune didn’t last long, though. Exactly how the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels was roped in to act as security is much debated, but legends of the notorious biker gang being offered $500 worth of beer to ensure there were “no murders” persist to this day.
Santana’s opening set went smoothly enough, but as more free beer was being consumed, the ‘security’ grew ever more violent and confrontational. With the crowd becoming increasingly tightly packed and inching towards the stage, various Hells Angels, armed with sawn-off pool cues and motorcycle chains, began fighting the audience with thuggish efficiency. The situation deteriorated so badly that the Grateful Dead refused to play, having been scheduled to perform after Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
It was during the Stones’ ‘Under My Thumb’ that Altamont reached its nadir. High on methamphetamine, the 18-year-old Hunter repeatedly tried to rush the stage, eventually pulling a .22 calibre revolver from his pocket with “murderous intent”, according to Grateful Dead manager Rock Scully. Before a potential shot could be fired, Angel Alan Passaro drew a knife from his belt and stuck Hunter in his side fatally. The full horrifying reality was lost on the band, and they decided to continue their set, fearing that abandoning the stage would inflame the crowd into a full-blown riot.
So, did people give birth at Altamont?
A curious legacy of the concert’s violent convulsion is the reports of four births at the speedway site.
Unbelievable as it may be, the Altamont Free Concert does in fact hot the Guinness World Record for ‘most births at a music concert’, confirmed by the American Red Cross. Entering the world amid murder, drunken violence, and possibly Keith Richards’ apocalyptic riff on ‘Gimme Shelter’ is certainly one hell of an arrival.
