海角大神

'Just a Shot Away' redefines the 1969 Altamont tragedy as a racial crime

Writer Saul Austerlitz revisits the fatal stabbing at a disastrous late '60s rock concert to focus on the nearly forgotten victim.

From the start of Just a Shot Away: Peace, Love, and Tragedy with the Rolling Stones at Altamont, it鈥檚 clear how Saul Austerlitz will frame his searing account of the Bay Area festival that was supposed to be the West Coast version of Woodstock but culminated in the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old African American named Meredith Hunter.

The disastrous daylong concert is often depicted as the symbolic end of the 1960s. But for Austerlitz, who opens the book with a visit to Hunter鈥檚 sister to learn about the brother she lost almost a half century before, Altamont is 鈥渁bout the fundamental trauma of race. A black man had gone somewhere white men did not want him to be, and had never come home.鈥�

The focus on Hunter is commendable. While it鈥檚 well known that the Rolling Stones headlined the free show on December 6, 1969, and that much of its violence was instigated by the Hells Angels, the biker gang that provided security, Hunter has remained a cipher. His death was captured by documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles, who had been following the Stones on their American tour, and the brief, blurry footage became the centerpiece of their 1970 film, "Gimme Shelter." But Hunter is an anonymous victim in the documentary, remaining unnamed; even his grave was unmarked until about a decade ago.聽

Austerlitz rectifies that erasure by recounting the details of Hunter鈥檚 brief life. He was born to a schizophrenic, impoverished mother, and, the author writes, his 鈥渢eenage years were a closed circuit: home, the streets, and juvie.鈥� Charming and kind, he was, despite his rap sheet for a number of burglaries, a loving brother to his widowed sister and a devoted uncle to her three young children. 聽

The author deftly creates a sense of foreboding, alternating Hunter鈥檚 story with the more familiar one of the slapdash planning of the concert, which ended up drawing 300,000 people to the Altamont Speedway, 50 miles east of San Francisco. Many of the arrangements were 鈥渓eft to chance, or to wishful thinking and misplaced hopefulness.鈥澛�

The most ill-considered decision was to place security for the massive event in the hands of the Angels. The bikers often guarded the stage for the Grateful Dead, who were also to perform at Altamont. The misguided affinity between the counterculture and the Hells Angels stemmed from the hippies鈥� deluded belief that the bikers shared their opposition to middle-class bourgeois values, when, as Austerlitz demonstrates, they gave ample indication of having racist and violent authoritarian tendencies.聽

David Maysles instructed his film crew as they were about to fan out into the festival, 鈥淲e only want beautiful things.鈥� It was not to be. From the beginning there was a sense of menace in the air. There were too many people, and the speedway鈥檚 incline meant that concertgoers were crammed together, forced against the stage; additionally, tainted acid was making its way through the crowd. Those up close were unable to move except to attempt to back away when the Hells Angels pounced from the stage to dole out beatings to audience members guilty of touching the equipment or some other infraction. With hardly any police officers in attendance, the brutal Angels 鈥渨ere simultaneously the criminals and the police force tasked with preserving order,鈥� Austerlitz writes.

The performers didn鈥檛 escape the violence. Jefferson Airplane鈥檚 Marty Balin was knocked unconscious 鈥� twice! 鈥� by an Angel named Animal; when the Stones arrived by helicopter a concertgoer ran to Mick Jagger and punched him in the face. Jerry Garcia and the Dead, taking the temperature of the crowd, decided not to go on, ostensibly to let the headlining Stones perform sooner and put an end to the calamitous affair. (Austerlitz deems their exit 鈥渋gnominious.鈥�) Jagger later quipped, 鈥淚f Jesus had been there, he would have been crucified.鈥�

When it was all over, the Maysleses had to figure out what to do with the mess of footage they鈥檇 acquired. One of the book鈥檚 most fascinating sections concerns the editing of what would become "Gimme Shelter." Co-director Charlotte Zwerin came up with the ingenious idea of filming Jagger, who hadn鈥檛 spoken publicly about Hunter, as he watched the footage of the teenager鈥檚 death. The sequence, Austerlitz argues, transformed the film 鈥渇rom a document of a misbegotten day in the world of rock 鈥檔鈥� roll to a disquisition on death, moral responsibility, and the fate of youth culture.鈥�

The author strains to link Hunter to Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and others whose deaths have galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement. Hunter鈥檚 case is complicated by the fact that he was on methamphetamines and was waving a gun 鈥� one he seemingly pulled in response to being assaulted by the Hells Angels. Still, it鈥檚 easy to agree with Austerlitz that Hunter鈥檚 鈥減unishment did not in any way match the crime.鈥� (Alan Passaro, the Angel charged with Hunter鈥檚 murder, was acquitted following a six-week trial in which he argued he鈥檇 acted in self-defense.)

And what happened later is telling. The Angels demanded the Stones give them $50,000 for Passaro鈥檚 defense fund. They refused, but after the bikers made two bungled attempts to assassinate Mick Jagger, the band agreed to pay up. By comparison, Austerlitz notes, when Hunter鈥檚 mother sued the Stones for her son's wrongful death, they settled with her for $10,000.