WEBVTT - The Angels, The Stones and The Dead 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:15.890 Pushkin. 0:00:27.890 --> 0:00:32.250 The nineteen sixties are mythologized as a decade of peace 0:00:32.290 --> 0:00:36.770 and love. But peace and love definitely wasn't the vibe 0:00:36.930 --> 0:00:42.370 outside the beatles London offices. The genteel calm of savile 0:00:42.530 --> 0:00:47.570 row was shattered by the unfamiliar rumble of powerful motorcycle 0:00:47.730 --> 0:00:53.730 engines and sitting astride. These souped up Hardy Davidson's are 0:00:53.770 --> 0:00:57.970 a dozen American Hells Angels pulling up at the Apple 0:00:58.010 --> 0:01:01.970 Records Building well in time for the beatles nineteen sixty 0:01:02.010 --> 0:01:09.290 eight Christmas party. George Harrison had met the bikers in 0:01:09.530 --> 0:01:14.410 la Despite their fearsome reputation for violence, these angels seemed 0:01:14.530 --> 0:01:18.170 cordial enough, and since they were planning a European jaunt, 0:01:18.730 --> 0:01:21.530 Harrison offered to put them up in the Beatles' offices. 0:01:22.210 --> 0:01:26.210 In a stern memo to staff, the Beatles said, they 0:01:26.250 --> 0:01:26.890 may look. 0:01:26.730 --> 0:01:28.450 As though they are going to do you in, but 0:01:29.130 --> 0:01:32.530 don't fear them or uptight them. Try to assist them 0:01:32.530 --> 0:01:36.130 without neglecting your Apple business and without letting them take control. 0:01:41.770 --> 0:01:44.890 By the time the guests assembled for the Christmas party, 0:01:45.490 --> 0:01:48.330 the bikers were fully ensconced in the building and very 0:01:48.370 --> 0:01:52.530 much in control. George Harrison wasn't there, but the other 0:01:52.570 --> 0:01:56.050 Beatles had brought their children along to enjoy magic shows 0:01:56.090 --> 0:02:01.170 and a ventriloquist act. What they got were Hell's angels, 0:02:01.610 --> 0:02:05.650 said to be drunk and stoned and high out of 0:02:05.730 --> 0:02:11.330 their minds. One guest lost his three year old son 0:02:11.410 --> 0:02:15.130 and the confusion. The child was located not on the 0:02:15.250 --> 0:02:18.010 knee of Santa Claus, but in the lap of an 0:02:18.050 --> 0:02:23.050 angel who was giving him gulps of beer. The bikers 0:02:23.050 --> 0:02:26.730 were less agreeable with the adult party goers and quite 0:02:26.730 --> 0:02:28.170 prepared to do them in. 0:02:29.570 --> 0:02:31.810 What the fuck is going on in this place? 0:02:32.010 --> 0:02:35.690 Screamed an angel called Frisco Pete at John Lennon, we 0:02:35.770 --> 0:02:40.450 want to eat. Aggrieved by a delay in serving food, 0:02:40.730 --> 0:02:45.330 the bikers became surly and aggressive, souring the holiday mood. 0:02:46.890 --> 0:02:50.850 The guest com pleaded for calm was punched. Luckily for 0:02:50.930 --> 0:02:55.970 John Lennon, a forty three pound turkey, reputedly the largest 0:02:55.970 --> 0:03:03.210 available in all of Britain, was suddenly carried into the room. 0:03:03.450 --> 0:03:07.930 They ripped the turkey to pieces, said a witness, trampling 0:03:08.010 --> 0:03:09.970 young children under to get to it. 0:03:10.410 --> 0:03:11.770 I've never seen anything like it. 0:03:15.090 --> 0:03:18.450 The Beatles had had their fill of these greasy guests 0:03:18.650 --> 0:03:23.290 and summoned George Harrison to evict them. His initial attempts 0:03:23.330 --> 0:03:27.330 to encourage their departure were perhaps too subtle. 0:03:28.570 --> 0:03:30.810 Do you dig us, but don't you? 0:03:31.450 --> 0:03:37.730 They asked Harrison, Confused, the so called quiet Beetle again 0:03:38.050 --> 0:03:43.490 couched his request that they depart in soothing, spiritual terms, 0:03:44.130 --> 0:03:50.490 to the continued bafflement of the bikers. Exasperated, Harrison changed tack. 0:03:51.930 --> 0:03:53.930 You know, booger off. 0:03:57.450 --> 0:04:01.370 The Apple employees in the room drew breath and waited 0:04:01.450 --> 0:04:10.010 for the fists to fly. I'm Tim, Hart offered, and 0:04:10.050 --> 0:04:36.490 you're listening to another cautionary tale. Just to be clear, 0:04:37.130 --> 0:04:41.650 in Britain, bugger off isn't the politest way to ask 0:04:41.890 --> 0:04:45.930 guests to leave. But perhaps the quaintness of this Britishism, 0:04:46.130 --> 0:04:51.010 or George Harrison's soft liver publician accent disarmed the Hell's Angels. 0:04:51.650 --> 0:04:54.530 Well, if you put it that way, George. 0:04:54.370 --> 0:04:58.370 Said the angels, and away they roared up, savle row. 0:05:04.250 --> 0:05:07.330 The Beatles had gotten off lightly, but they weren't alone 0:05:07.450 --> 0:05:11.810 in mistaking the Hell's a Angels for harmless, lovable rogues. 0:05:12.890 --> 0:05:18.890 Many leading figures in the sixties counterculture writers, actors, rock stars, 0:05:19.570 --> 0:05:24.930 courted the Angels, thinking them allies in the war against. 0:05:24.490 --> 0:05:25.810 The square world. 0:05:27.170 --> 0:05:29.850 Of all the cheerleaders in the music community for the 0:05:29.890 --> 0:05:34.290 Hell's Angels, none were more influential than the Grateful Dead, 0:05:34.770 --> 0:05:41.010 those demigods of the San Francisco hippie scene. The Dead 0:05:41.330 --> 0:05:44.890 had played at a Hell's Angels party back in sixty seven, 0:05:45.370 --> 0:05:49.210 and the Bikers somewhat adopted the band, and the power 0:05:49.330 --> 0:05:54.050 mysteriously failed at a subsequent gig, the Angels stepped in 0:05:54.210 --> 0:05:59.450 to guard the generators and cabling, so on a trip 0:05:59.490 --> 0:06:03.290 to London, the Grateful Dead's manager waxed lyrical about the 0:06:03.330 --> 0:06:07.490 Angels to none other than the Rolling Stones. How the 0:06:07.570 --> 0:06:12.650 bikers were a cost of and crucially cool alternative for 0:06:12.690 --> 0:06:13.810 policing concerts. 0:06:14.730 --> 0:06:17.290 He trusted those cats, man. 0:06:18.010 --> 0:06:23.210 Remarked the Stones guitarist Keith Richards. It certainly planted an 0:06:23.250 --> 0:06:28.970 idea with the self styled bad boys of rock. The 0:06:29.010 --> 0:06:33.330 Beatles and the Stones were firm friends. The two bands 0:06:33.370 --> 0:06:37.290 socialized together, appeared on each other's records, and were even 0:06:37.370 --> 0:06:42.450 considering merging their back office operations. It's rather odd than 0:06:42.450 --> 0:06:46.370 that the debarcle of the Beatles Christmas Party hadn't made 0:06:46.370 --> 0:06:50.690 a bigger impression on Mick Jagger and his bandmates, warning 0:06:50.730 --> 0:06:57.250 them to steer well clear of the likes of Frisco Pete. 0:06:58.690 --> 0:07:00.450 You never saw a police force like. 0:07:00.450 --> 0:07:03.210 It, said The Stones bass player Bill Wyman. 0:07:03.450 --> 0:07:08.930 Black leather suits studded to the eyeballs, Nazi helmets, swastikas 0:07:08.930 --> 0:07:11.290 and crosses everywhere. 0:07:15.650 --> 0:07:20.890 It's a sweltering July day in London's Leafy Hyde Park. Indeed, 0:07:20.890 --> 0:07:23.730 it's so hot that the roads can't keep the band's 0:07:23.730 --> 0:07:28.130 guitars in tune, and fans gathering for that afternoon's free 0:07:28.170 --> 0:07:32.250 giga diving into the park's lake a Serpentine. 0:07:31.970 --> 0:07:32.770 To cool off. 0:07:35.490 --> 0:07:38.450 At least a quarter of a million young people are 0:07:38.490 --> 0:07:43.530 expected to swarm the venue, so fifty British Hell's Angels 0:07:43.530 --> 0:07:46.850 have been recruited to act as what Wyman described as 0:07:47.210 --> 0:07:52.650 heavy men. They arrive dressed like some greasy contingent of 0:07:52.850 --> 0:07:54.170 Himmler's SS. 0:07:54.970 --> 0:07:57.810 The swastiku is out before the Nazis was even. 0:07:57.650 --> 0:08:01.730 Four of, said ron biker, defending his choice of attire, 0:08:02.770 --> 0:08:06.250 and it was a sign a piece. No one is 0:08:06.450 --> 0:08:10.370 truly buying the peaceful intentions of these toughs, though, and 0:08:10.410 --> 0:08:14.170 the Stones head of security reads them the ry attacked. 0:08:14.810 --> 0:08:17.250 If any of the bikers have come for a brawl, 0:08:17.770 --> 0:08:20.930 he'll see them after the concert, and he'll be armed 0:08:21.130 --> 0:08:26.850 with a shotgun. Despite the menacing appearance of this so 0:08:27.130 --> 0:08:32.010 called leather militia, the event begins without a hitch. The 0:08:32.090 --> 0:08:37.290 bikers content themselves with guarding the stones many girlfriends and groupes, 0:08:37.690 --> 0:08:42.210 and occasionally aiding fans who've wilted in the heat. There 0:08:42.250 --> 0:08:46.130 are some hiccups, of course, but the Stones plan to 0:08:46.170 --> 0:08:50.490 release thousands of white butterflies to memorialize the loss of 0:08:50.650 --> 0:08:54.770 Brian Jones, a founder member of the band, who drowned 0:08:54.770 --> 0:09:01.730 in his pool just days earlier. Legend has it that 0:09:01.810 --> 0:09:05.010 a drunken biker fell on a box of these butterflies, 0:09:05.330 --> 0:09:10.530 crushing the poor creatures inside. The Rolling Stones, by their 0:09:10.530 --> 0:09:14.690 own admission, had played badly, out of tune and out 0:09:14.690 --> 0:09:18.810 of tempo, but the gig was still deemed a success. 0:09:19.770 --> 0:09:23.690 Mick Jagger, whose singing had been hobbled both by laryngitis 0:09:23.850 --> 0:09:27.730 and hay fever, said fans weren't that bothered by the 0:09:27.810 --> 0:09:29.530 quality of his performance anyway. 0:09:30.250 --> 0:09:33.370 It's an excuse as well as a groove for them 0:09:33.410 --> 0:09:36.330 to all come together to join hands and embrace each. 0:09:36.170 --> 0:09:41.730 Other, and things had indeed passed off peacefully, very peacefully. 0:09:42.250 --> 0:09:47.250 There were virtually no arrests, and afterwards fans had enthusiastically 0:09:47.370 --> 0:09:50.970 gathered up their trash, having been promised free records for 0:09:51.050 --> 0:09:55.530 every three bags they collected. How much of this serenity 0:09:55.730 --> 0:10:00.170 was down to the Hell's Angels is debatable. London's parks 0:10:00.330 --> 0:10:04.090 have their own police force. These bobbies were monitoring the 0:10:04.170 --> 0:10:07.730 crowd closely, ready to move in at the first sign 0:10:07.770 --> 0:10:12.490 of trouble. The black clad Angels might have been fitting 0:10:12.570 --> 0:10:17.130 stage props to burnish the Rolling Stones bad boy image, 0:10:17.690 --> 0:10:23.250 but they certainly weren't replacing the actual cops. To their credit, 0:10:23.570 --> 0:10:26.850 the bikers hadn't started any trouble of their own, which, 0:10:27.010 --> 0:10:31.410 given the fearsome reputation of this outlaw motorcycle club, might 0:10:31.450 --> 0:10:35.890 surprise you. That's because the heavy men enlisted by the 0:10:35.970 --> 0:10:42.170 Rolling Stones weren't really Hell's Angels. The fifty bikers at 0:10:42.250 --> 0:10:47.210 Hyde Park were ursats Hell's Angels, cose players in leather 0:10:47.450 --> 0:10:52.010 and Nazi style helms, a pale imitation of the Angels 0:10:52.010 --> 0:10:56.690 in America. Indeed, when Frisco Pete and his friends had 0:10:56.810 --> 0:11:00.370 ridden through London the previous winter. They'd been shocked to 0:11:00.410 --> 0:11:04.930 see locals with no affiliation to the club sporting Hell's 0:11:05.090 --> 0:11:10.010 Angels badges. They decided to stamp out these fitters by 0:11:10.130 --> 0:11:16.410 establishing official Angel chapters and recruiting only bikers who met 0:11:16.450 --> 0:11:24.130 their particular standards of deportment. And what were these behavioral norms? 0:11:23.810 --> 0:11:30.810 As the Rolling Stones would soon find out Cautionary tales 0:11:31.330 --> 0:11:40.410 will return in a moment. The origins of the Hell's 0:11:40.530 --> 0:11:45.330 Angels motorcycle club are disputed, but it's broadly accepted the 0:11:45.370 --> 0:11:50.530 seeds were sown in California by returning World War II veterans, 0:11:50.650 --> 0:11:56.810 often riding army surplus. Harley Davidson's groups of riders formed 0:11:56.810 --> 0:12:00.770 and amalgamated, with chapters of the Hell's Angels gradually being 0:12:00.890 --> 0:12:05.770 established across America. By the mid nineteen sixties, the Angels 0:12:05.770 --> 0:12:10.210 were attracting national attention, and for all all the wrong reasons. 0:12:11.370 --> 0:12:15.370 Bill Ray, a photojournalist with the magazine Life, hitched a 0:12:15.490 --> 0:12:16.490 ride with them. 0:12:17.010 --> 0:12:19.490 They always had plenty of money for gas and beer. 0:12:20.210 --> 0:12:22.650 Their money had to come from somewhere, but none of 0:12:22.650 --> 0:12:23.410 them ever worked. 0:12:25.290 --> 0:12:28.610 The FBI was pretty sure these rebels funded their lifestyle 0:12:28.730 --> 0:12:33.130 through drug dealing, extortion, and a raft of other nefarious activities. 0:12:33.890 --> 0:12:38.130 Then there was their propensity for violence. Ray saw the 0:12:38.170 --> 0:12:41.930 Angels he had befriended beat the holy hell out of 0:12:41.970 --> 0:12:46.730 a rival gang. He said, the uncompromising message to outsiders. 0:12:46.970 --> 0:12:49.450 Get out of the way, or got a hell. 0:12:51.330 --> 0:12:56.330 Since the Angels enthusiastically embraced drugs and just as enthusiastically 0:12:56.330 --> 0:13:01.090 rejected middle class morez, the beatnicks, heads and hippies of 0:13:01.130 --> 0:13:06.290 the burgeoning nineteen sixties counterculture assumed these bikers were kindred spirits. 0:13:07.970 --> 0:13:11.850 The celebrities of the Bee world, poet Alan Ginsburg, writer 0:13:11.970 --> 0:13:16.690 Ken Kesey, and LSD advocate Timothy Leary even broke bread 0:13:16.690 --> 0:13:21.370 with the Angels, dropping acid with them, smoking dope, and 0:13:21.410 --> 0:13:24.970 listening to the Stones on a high Fi together. In fact, 0:13:25.050 --> 0:13:28.010 there's a lyric from the Rolling Stones hit Sympathy for 0:13:28.050 --> 0:13:33.130 the Devil, which neatly articulates the belief that such outlaws 0:13:33.570 --> 0:13:38.130 were actually heroes standing up against the corruption and hypocrisy 0:13:38.170 --> 0:13:42.890 of mainstream society. Just as every cop is a criminal 0:13:43.450 --> 0:13:53.330 begins one verse, and all the sinners saints. When fifteen 0:13:53.570 --> 0:13:59.090 thousand anti war demonstrators streamed down Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue. They 0:13:59.170 --> 0:14:03.970 reasonably thought the authorities would be their sole adversaries. The 0:14:04.050 --> 0:14:07.850 march was supposed to end at the Oakland Army Terminal, 0:14:08.050 --> 0:14:10.810 where men and materiel were being shipped off to the 0:14:10.890 --> 0:14:14.930 unpopular war in Vietnam, but the activists were halted by 0:14:14.970 --> 0:14:19.330 a phalanx of riot police. The leaders of the march 0:14:19.370 --> 0:14:22.850 went forward to confer with the police chief when out 0:14:22.850 --> 0:14:29.330 of nowhere, a dozen or more Hell's Angels assaulted them. 0:14:29.890 --> 0:14:35.090 Writers communists yelled the bikers, followed by more punches and 0:14:35.170 --> 0:14:41.410 shouts of America, first America, for Americans. The police sprang 0:14:41.450 --> 0:14:45.730 to the defense of the bewildered protesters, arresting several angels 0:14:46.450 --> 0:14:50.610 clicking their wounds. The activists simply couldn't comprehend what had 0:14:50.730 --> 0:14:57.330 just gone down. The writer Hunter S. Thompson was at 0:14:57.330 --> 0:15:00.410 the demo working on a book all about the Angels. 0:15:01.050 --> 0:15:05.170 He witnessed the incredulity of the marchers. Surely the bikers 0:15:05.170 --> 0:15:08.890 should be on our side. The angels had to be 0:15:09.290 --> 0:15:14.090 over went their logic, so Alan Ginsburg was sent to 0:15:14.170 --> 0:15:19.610 open the talks. According to Thompson, the swastikas worn by 0:15:19.610 --> 0:15:23.290 the bikers were a worrying sign of their real allegiance. 0:15:24.090 --> 0:15:27.170 The Angel's collective viewpoint has always been for sistic. They 0:15:27.210 --> 0:15:30.210 had the same kind of retrograde patriotism that motivates the 0:15:30.290 --> 0:15:32.890 klucos Klan and the American Nazi Party. 0:15:34.210 --> 0:15:37.690 The Angels weren't just supportive of the war in Vietnam, 0:15:38.010 --> 0:15:41.650 they were willing to enter the fray. Sonny Barger, the 0:15:41.770 --> 0:15:45.490 deve facto leader of the Bikers, sent a telegram to 0:15:45.570 --> 0:15:50.770 President Johnson suggesting his gang be dropped behind enemy lines 0:15:50.890 --> 0:15:56.650 to terrorize the viet Cong. So Ginsburg's peace mission went 0:15:56.690 --> 0:16:00.490 about as badly as you'd expect. At one point, the 0:16:00.570 --> 0:16:04.930 poet even told the Biker chieftain that he loved him. 0:16:05.210 --> 0:16:08.450 Sonny didn't know what the hell to say after fellow Angel. 0:16:09.850 --> 0:16:14.410 The Angels weren't one over to support the peace protesters, 0:16:14.450 --> 0:16:18.410 but nor did they stage any more violent counter demos. 0:16:19.450 --> 0:16:24.290 Sonny Barger said cracking the skulls of the Unamerican marchers. 0:16:24.370 --> 0:16:27.370 Would only produce sympathy for this mob of traders. 0:16:28.970 --> 0:16:32.850 That's a pretty clear declaration of the Angel's position. 0:16:33.650 --> 0:16:34.610 But Hunter S. 0:16:34.690 --> 0:16:38.610 Thompson said some in the counterculture still saw this as 0:16:38.650 --> 0:16:42.850 a sign that the angels were gradually coming round to 0:16:42.890 --> 0:16:49.010 the hippie point of view. We often find it hard 0:16:49.090 --> 0:16:52.890 to distinguish between what is true and what we wish 0:16:53.010 --> 0:16:57.370 were true, and it can have a decidedly detrimental effect 0:16:57.450 --> 0:17:02.610 on our lives. Colloquially we call it wishful thinking, but 0:17:02.810 --> 0:17:06.530 really it's a bias, the desirability bias, and it's been 0:17:06.530 --> 0:17:12.210 measured in several studies. The behavioral economist Guy Meyraus once 0:17:12.250 --> 0:17:15.970 recruited a bunch of ordinary people and randomly assigned them 0:17:16.050 --> 0:17:20.490 to imagine themselves to be farmers or bakers. They were 0:17:20.490 --> 0:17:24.050 shown a graph and told it was the historical fluctuations 0:17:24.090 --> 0:17:27.290 of wheat prices. Then they were asked to predict the 0:17:27.330 --> 0:17:30.450 future price of wheat, would it go up or would 0:17:30.450 --> 0:17:34.290 it go down. They'd be rewarded if their predictions came true, 0:17:34.610 --> 0:17:38.130 and in addition, the so called farmers would get extra 0:17:38.210 --> 0:17:41.690 payment if wheat prices went up, while the bakers got 0:17:41.810 --> 0:17:46.810 extra cash if wheat prices fell. In this experiment, the 0:17:46.890 --> 0:17:49.570 incentive is to make the most accurate prediction that you 0:17:49.730 --> 0:17:53.250 can and meanwhile hope that the wheat price moves up. 0:17:53.290 --> 0:17:56.370 If you're playing a farmer and down if you're playing 0:17:56.370 --> 0:18:01.690 a baker, and yet from exactly the same data, the 0:18:01.810 --> 0:18:05.090 pretend bakers predicted a dip in the cost of wheat 0:18:05.650 --> 0:18:11.210 and the pretend farmers forecast a rise. Both sides predicted 0:18:11.450 --> 0:18:17.290 what they wanted to happen, wishful thinking in its purest form. 0:18:17.730 --> 0:18:22.330 The desirability bias appears in politics too, of course. In 0:18:22.410 --> 0:18:27.450 twenty sixteen, a team of psychologists studied groups of American voters. 0:18:27.490 --> 0:18:31.410 Some were Trump supporters who doubted their man would actually win, 0:18:32.130 --> 0:18:36.410 while others backed Hillary Clinton but also thought sheered lose. 0:18:38.170 --> 0:18:42.170 These voters were then shown polling data that indeed had 0:18:42.290 --> 0:18:46.930 bad news about their candidate's chances, but also some indications 0:18:46.970 --> 0:18:50.570 that they might win. The psychologists found that the Clinton 0:18:50.650 --> 0:18:54.370 voters suddenly felt Hillary was more likely to take the 0:18:54.370 --> 0:18:57.890 White House. Of course, on the same data, the Trump 0:18:57.930 --> 0:19:01.170 supporters were now convinced that he would claim victory two. 0:19:02.090 --> 0:19:05.290 Both groups had assimilated the good news into their new 0:19:05.370 --> 0:19:12.690 prediction of the election their favored outcome, but ignored the bad. 0:19:15.770 --> 0:19:19.210 In nineteen sixty nine, the stones and the dead were 0:19:19.330 --> 0:19:23.850 also ignoring the bad news about the Hell's angels, and 0:19:23.890 --> 0:19:28.010 there was plenty of it. Perhaps they didn't believe the 0:19:28.050 --> 0:19:34.290 corporate newspapers and their square reporters. Of course, mainstream society 0:19:34.410 --> 0:19:39.130 would demonize the Angels because the Angels, just like the counterculture, 0:19:39.410 --> 0:19:43.650 rejected the mainstream. But what of the violence at the 0:19:43.690 --> 0:19:47.730 Berkeley Walmarch? And Hunter S. Thompson's book setting out the 0:19:47.730 --> 0:19:52.850 biker's troubling politics and behavior. Its publication had made Thompson 0:19:52.930 --> 0:19:56.970 a national celebrity, and he went on numerous TV shows 0:19:57.010 --> 0:20:00.570 to talk frankly about his two years living with the Angels. 0:20:01.530 --> 0:20:04.690 The PostScript to that book alone should have given anyone 0:20:04.850 --> 0:20:06.970 pause for thought about the biker gang. 0:20:08.330 --> 0:20:11.210 I push my luck a little too far and got 0:20:11.250 --> 0:20:15.610 badly stopped by four or five Angels? 0:20:16.530 --> 0:20:19.610 Are these really the sort of people that the Grateful 0:20:19.690 --> 0:20:23.770 Dead and the Rolling Stones wanted doing their concert security? 0:20:24.810 --> 0:20:30.770 Seems a sure fire recipe for indiscriminate violence. The Dead's 0:20:31.010 --> 0:20:37.730 Jerry Garcia was especially fond of the Angels, praising their straightforwardness. 0:20:37.530 --> 0:20:42.210 Their brutal But their brutality is really only honesty. 0:20:43.010 --> 0:20:45.930 I'm reminded of a viral tweet from twenty to fifteen 0:20:46.090 --> 0:20:51.250 by author Adrian Bott. It goes, I never thought leopards 0:20:51.290 --> 0:20:54.970 would eat my face sobs woman who voted for the 0:20:55.290 --> 0:21:03.770 Leopards Eating People's Faces party. The Rolling Stones US tour 0:21:03.890 --> 0:21:08.610 of late nineteen sixty nine was a roaring success, not 0:21:08.730 --> 0:21:12.490 to mention money Spinner. Audiences were pleased to see the band, 0:21:12.570 --> 0:21:17.410 who hadn't played America in years, but reporters repeatedly grumbled 0:21:17.410 --> 0:21:22.530 about the steep ticket prices. Perhaps stung by these insinuations 0:21:22.530 --> 0:21:26.250 of greed, but also motivated by a regret that they 0:21:26.290 --> 0:21:30.490 had not played Woodstock that summer, The Stones were plotting 0:21:30.530 --> 0:21:35.130 a free show a Woodstock of the West to end 0:21:35.250 --> 0:21:39.010 their time in America. The Grateful Dead would be on 0:21:39.090 --> 0:21:43.570 the bill, and they suggested the venue b San Francisco's 0:21:43.650 --> 0:21:49.210 Golden Gate Park. Unfortunately, the Dead announced the concert without 0:21:49.290 --> 0:21:53.330 asking the city authorities nor checking if any other events 0:21:53.490 --> 0:21:57.970 clashed with the proposed gig. They did, a big football 0:21:58.010 --> 0:22:02.170 game was scheduled, so Golden Gate Park, with its amenities, 0:22:02.330 --> 0:22:11.610 police department and transport links, was off the table. With 0:22:11.730 --> 0:22:15.370 time ticking, a racing circuit a few miles north of 0:22:15.410 --> 0:22:19.930 the city was booked and the Stones roadies began hurriedly 0:22:19.970 --> 0:22:24.530 constructing a stage. But even as they hammered away the 0:22:24.650 --> 0:22:29.370 deal with the track's owners was falling apart, with some 0:22:29.530 --> 0:22:33.490 concert goers already en route to the free show. The 0:22:33.530 --> 0:22:37.570 price for using the raceway was suddenly jacked up, so 0:22:37.730 --> 0:22:42.690 a frantic search began for a replacement. Hearing of the 0:22:42.730 --> 0:22:46.850 stone's predicament, the proprietor of another race circuit called with 0:22:46.890 --> 0:22:50.890 an offer. He'd happily host the festival. The publicity would 0:22:50.890 --> 0:22:56.050 benefit his venue, and the Altamont Speedway definitely needed some 0:22:56.170 --> 0:23:00.570 good press. Though only an hour or so inland from 0:23:00.610 --> 0:23:04.890 San Francisco, it was a world away. While San Francisco 0:23:05.090 --> 0:23:10.090 was lush and picturesque, Altamont was dry and barren. While 0:23:10.130 --> 0:23:14.650 the city was humming with hippie good vibes, Altamont was 0:23:14.690 --> 0:23:21.770 a rural and conservative backwater. There were no decent transport links, 0:23:22.090 --> 0:23:26.850 too few parking spaces, and certainly not enough bathrooms for 0:23:26.930 --> 0:23:31.690 three hundred thousand music fans. But still, the road is 0:23:31.890 --> 0:23:36.210 tore up their original stage and trucked it to Altamont. 0:23:40.610 --> 0:23:44.050 As they assembled it again, a new problem presented itself. 0:23:44.930 --> 0:23:47.530 At the first racetrack, this stage had been at the 0:23:47.570 --> 0:23:51.130 top of a slope. At Altamont, they had to build 0:23:51.130 --> 0:23:54.570 it at the foot of an incline. A general rule 0:23:54.690 --> 0:23:59.210 is that this is unwise, since gravity pushes crowds downhill 0:23:59.490 --> 0:24:02.770 and hard up against the stage. If you have no 0:24:02.970 --> 0:24:06.930 other choice, then a high stage helps prevent fans invading 0:24:06.970 --> 0:24:10.370 the performance space. But the age they'd brought with them 0:24:10.530 --> 0:24:14.650 was just three feet high. None of this was ideal, 0:24:15.370 --> 0:24:18.850 but geography was acting against the stones in a farm 0:24:19.010 --> 0:24:23.210 or sinister way. At the suggestion of the Grateful Dead, 0:24:23.610 --> 0:24:27.210 thet agreed to have the Hell's Angels act as security 0:24:28.290 --> 0:24:31.610 at the other proposed venues. These angels would have been 0:24:31.610 --> 0:24:35.410 recruited from chapters well known to the dead and trusted 0:24:35.450 --> 0:24:39.810 by them. That Altamont was in the East Bay, and 0:24:39.890 --> 0:24:42.690 the East Bay was very much the territory of the 0:24:42.730 --> 0:24:49.610 Hell's Angels, ruled by one Sunny Barger Cautionary tales will 0:24:49.650 --> 0:24:51.010 be back in a moment. 0:25:00.050 --> 0:25:00.970 With the aid of. 0:25:00.970 --> 0:25:05.530 Some chemical stimulation, the road is finished. The Altamont stage 0:25:05.570 --> 0:25:09.930 as December sixth dawn a sound s and was also 0:25:10.050 --> 0:25:12.970 rigged together, using bits and bobs from each of the 0:25:13.010 --> 0:25:20.690 acts appearing. It wasn't great, but it worked. Just Volunteers 0:25:20.690 --> 0:25:25.850 had been frantically tied dyeing great banners to decorate the stage, 0:25:26.530 --> 0:25:29.290 but nothing could bring much color or cheer to the 0:25:29.370 --> 0:25:34.090 dismal raceway. If attendees were hoping for a repeat of 0:25:34.170 --> 0:25:38.250 the good vibes and togetherness of that summer's Woodstock, they 0:25:38.250 --> 0:25:44.050 were in for a rude awakening. It was only after 0:25:44.330 --> 0:25:48.090 most of the other concertgoers had assembled that around one 0:25:48.250 --> 0:25:52.690 hundred Hells Angels rode in. They drove through the throng 0:25:53.370 --> 0:25:57.370 and parked their bikes in front of the low stage. 0:25:57.530 --> 0:26:02.650 This crowded real estate would become a flashpoint as fans 0:26:02.770 --> 0:26:06.530 flowed down the slope, jostling to hear and see better. 0:26:07.850 --> 0:26:12.250 They'd swamp this air, banging into and knocking over the 0:26:12.370 --> 0:26:18.450 prized Harley Davidson's of the Angels. There remains much dispute 0:26:18.490 --> 0:26:22.570 about the actual deal broken with Sonny Barger and his bikers. 0:26:23.570 --> 0:26:26.650 The accepted story is that they were offered five hundred 0:26:26.730 --> 0:26:29.850 dollars worth of beer to guard the stage, the equipment, 0:26:29.890 --> 0:26:33.690 and the performers. The bikers said they merely agreed to 0:26:33.730 --> 0:26:37.810 sit on the stage, drink beer and look menacing and 0:26:37.850 --> 0:26:40.650 spat on the idea that they were there to police 0:26:40.970 --> 0:26:46.570 anyone but Grace Slick, whose band Jefferson Airplane were playing 0:26:47.290 --> 0:26:49.410 was clear what she expected of the bikers. 0:26:50.530 --> 0:26:53.730 People get weird and you need people like the Angels 0:26:53.770 --> 0:26:54.730 to keep them in line. 0:26:56.330 --> 0:27:01.530 And people got weird, very weird, almost as soon as 0:27:01.570 --> 0:27:05.170 the music began. Keith Richards had been at the site 0:27:05.210 --> 0:27:09.770 all night, going ahead of his fellow Rolling Stones him 0:27:10.210 --> 0:27:13.930 Altamont resembled Dante's vision of Hell. 0:27:14.650 --> 0:27:18.610 It was a descent to cave men level thanks to 0:27:18.770 --> 0:27:23.890 sunny Barja in his lot and bad red wine and 0:27:24.010 --> 0:27:25.130 bad acid. 0:27:29.050 --> 0:27:33.250 Out of their minds. Some hippies striped naked and clambered 0:27:33.290 --> 0:27:38.330 over the stage the Angels and their bikes. Santana was 0:27:38.370 --> 0:27:42.890 the first band to play, and knives were drawn and 0:27:43.010 --> 0:27:50.810 blood spilled before their opening song was done. Jefferson Airplane followed, 0:27:51.330 --> 0:27:54.250 and now the Hell's Angels flailed up the crowd with 0:27:54.330 --> 0:28:01.210 the fat ends of pool cues cracking skulls. Marty Balin 0:28:01.370 --> 0:28:07.170 of Jefferson Airplane had had enough of the unfolding savagery. 0:28:07.330 --> 0:28:12.330 Seeing Angels assaulting yet another music fan, Bailin threw his 0:28:12.530 --> 0:28:18.610 tambourine at the attackers. A biker known as Animal punched Baby, 0:28:19.130 --> 0:28:19.850 knocking him out. 0:28:21.290 --> 0:28:22.010 Coming to his. 0:28:22.010 --> 0:28:26.490 Senses, Baileen leapt down from the stage to intervene once again. 0:28:26.530 --> 0:28:30.890 In the brawling, fists and pool cues were flying. Grace 0:28:30.930 --> 0:28:33.290 Slick pleaded into her microphone. 0:28:33.930 --> 0:28:41.650 No, now, stop it, Please be kind, Please be kind. 0:28:44.170 --> 0:28:47.770 Grace didn't have her contact lensers in, so to her, 0:28:48.330 --> 0:28:51.330 the violent melee in the front row was just a 0:28:51.490 --> 0:28:52.610 nightmarish blur. 0:28:54.290 --> 0:28:58.050 You've got to keep your bodies on each other unless you. 0:28:58.130 --> 0:29:02.410 Intend love, she told the brawlers, as one by one 0:29:02.610 --> 0:29:06.850 her bandmate stopped playing and took refuge behind the drum kit. 0:29:09.370 --> 0:29:15.290 Animal approached Marty Bayalin, apologizing for punching him but recommending 0:29:15.330 --> 0:29:17.250 his show The Hell's Angels more. 0:29:17.050 --> 0:29:18.290 Respect in future. 0:29:19.170 --> 0:29:23.730 Fuck you, replied the musician, Animal knocked down and out again. 0:29:26.890 --> 0:29:31.850 The Flying Burrito Brothers came next, then Crosby, Stills, Nash 0:29:31.850 --> 0:29:36.490 and Young. During their set, Stephen Stills was stabbed in 0:29:36.570 --> 0:29:40.130 the leg by an angel armed with a sharpened wheelspoke. 0:29:40.890 --> 0:29:46.130 Still's bandmate David Crosby was unsurprised by this turn of events. 0:29:46.890 --> 0:29:52.330 Unlike his fellow musicians, Crosby seemed clear eyed about the bikers. 0:29:53.410 --> 0:29:55.850 If you don't want the tiger to eat your lunch guests, 0:29:56.290 --> 0:29:58.210 don't invite the fucking Tiger to lunch. 0:30:03.330 --> 0:30:07.290 But where were the people who suggested inviting the tiger? 0:30:08.050 --> 0:30:13.010 The Grateful Dead had just helicoptered in and crossing the site, 0:30:13.370 --> 0:30:19.170 they'd noticed many unfamiliar, unfriendly faces among the Hell's angels. 0:30:20.010 --> 0:30:24.490 Hearing of the unfolding violence and noting the sour mood, 0:30:25.130 --> 0:30:29.290 they agreed this isn't a place for us and scurried 0:30:29.370 --> 0:30:36.250 back to the helipad. This left a gap in the schedule. 0:30:37.330 --> 0:30:40.850 Most of the Rolling Stones had flown in, with Mick 0:30:40.930 --> 0:30:44.850 Jagger taking a punch from a drugged up giggoer moments 0:30:45.090 --> 0:30:48.770 after their arrival, but Bill Wyman had missed the flight, 0:30:49.570 --> 0:30:54.690 so Altamont endured an increasingly tense hiatus until he arrived. 0:30:55.770 --> 0:30:59.650 It was cold and inkly black when the Stones is 0:30:59.730 --> 0:31:06.570 set finally began under blood red stage lights. Jumpin Jack 0:31:06.650 --> 0:31:11.050 Flash was followed by Carol, then sympathy for the Devil, 0:31:11.730 --> 0:31:17.450 but scuffles that had started even before their show began intensified. 0:31:18.290 --> 0:31:21.930 Jagger stopped singing, Brothers. 0:31:21.490 --> 0:31:23.770 And Sisters, why. 0:31:25.130 --> 0:31:26.170 We don't want to fight? 0:31:26.450 --> 0:31:26.730 Come on? 0:31:28.650 --> 0:31:33.410