The Rolling Stones in December 6, 1969

The Rolling Stones in December 6, 1969 at Atlamont Speedway Free Festival, California

The Rolling Stones is a renowned rock and roll musical group globally. The following paper analyses the musical performance, musician’s names involved in the performance used in the book The Rolling Stones in December 6, 1969 at Altamont Speedway Free Festival, California. Also the paper describes the musical performance in every stage in the performance.

In the reviewing of the musical performance, The Rolling Stones for this time around targeted the mature people that were willing to listen to their music. The concert was attended by more than300 thousands audience. The audience was eager to experience the rock and roll musical genre. During their performance, they applied state of the art amplification systems. This was done to ensure that the thousands fans who had attended the concert got to hear the music from where they were in an enhanced way that ensured the clarity of the sound system. The lighting of the concert was enhanced and created an environment that the attendants of the concert were fascinated with. The musicians giving performance in this festival include the Rolling Stone, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Crosby, Nash and Young, and Stills. The Rolling Stone members included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Ian Stewart (Nelson, 2010).

The overall performance was not very impressive. The show was characterized by acts of violence fueled by alcohol and drugs usage during the concert. The Hell Angles who were contacted to provide security in the stage were also intoxicated and could not carry out their mandate in an appropriate way (James, 2011).

In the beginning of the concert, the middle and the ending can be described in one word as chaotic and disorganized performance. In to some extent the first part was a bit good compared to other stages in the performance. In the beginning, Mick in the company of Ronnie who is their manager after alighting from a helicopter is approached by a kid who says he hates him and the child goes on and punches him on his mouth. The Rolling Stone manager Bergman describes the audience as ugly people and the Hells Angels who were supposed to give security around the stage according to him were frightening rather than carrying out their duty (Nelson, 2010).The whole concert scenario looked like a battle field. Angles were up against the audience and everyone else including women and children were throwing all matter of objects to one another. In the Jefferson time, the Hells Angels had beaten the lead singer of the group unconsciously. According to Wyman in the course of their performance he would see commotion in the midst of the audience and the Angels could be seen beating some guy in the course of that commotion. “The cloud would open and you could see six Angels just whacking them with pool cues, and you thought what was going on?” (Nelson, 2010).

Keith Richards was enthusiastic to stop the fracas. He tried to control the situation only to be told that someone in the crowd had a gun and was aiming it at the stage. He was identified as Meredith Hunter. The violence escalated up to a stage where people got into a stampede including the Angels. It was later announced that The Stones would not be performing until such a time the stage was cleared. In an effort to get audience off the speaker, Hunter found himself in a heated argument with the Hells Angels and in the process he draws out a gun and the one of the Angels pulls a knife and stubs him to death. Finally Mick tries to convince the audience that if they stand united the rest of the evening was to be peaceful but it was too late (Raymond, 2012).The whole performance was chaotic and out of hands.

If the performance had a positive attitude from the audience, the performance could have been successful. This is because the performers and the audience must correlate positively to achieve a good and peaceful concert. Also the p-positive actions of the audience will ease the duty of the security details contracted in the concert.

References
James, S. (2011). Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Raymond, I. (2012). Do You Believe in Rock and Roll: Essays on Don Mclean’s American Pie. London: Diane Publishers.
Nelson, M. (2010). The Rolling Stones: A Musical Biography. Santa Barbara, California: ABC- CLIO.