Death, Drugs, Music: Altamont's 'Woodstock West' 50 Years Later

LIVERMORE, CA — The Hells Angels motorcycle gang was the hired security for the free concert in Livermore's hills that included headliners the Rolling Stones; Jefferson Airplane; Crosby, Nash & Young; Santana; and The Flying Burrito. Approximately 300,000 fans were in attendance, many doped up on LSD, booze or other drugs. What could possibly go wrong? Everything.

On Dec. 6, 1969, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival was held. According to Rolling Stone magazine, it was "rock and roll's all-time worst day." Four people died at the festival: 18-year-old Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death, two people were killed in a hit-and-run crash, and one person succumb in an LSD-induced drowning.

The Grateful Dead was scheduled to perform at the venue, but declined to take the stage due to increasing violence at the festival dubbed "Woodstock West."

"That's the way things went at Altamont — so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play," Rolling Stone magazine wrote in an article about the event.

"When it was over, Altamont would be hard to imagine as even a distant cousin of the hippie dream. Woodstock would be hailed as a triumph ... . Altamont would end in darkness ... ," Geoff Edgers of The Washington Post wrote in piece published last week titled, "50 years ago, Altamont ended the '60s with chaos and death."

To this day, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, still has trouble getting his head around it.

"It was just sort of a nightmarish day," Richards told Edgers. "Not just for us, but for everybody."