ROLLING STONES GRATEFUL DEAD SANTANA AIRPLANE CSNY 1969 Altamont Concert Poster

Description

THE ROLLING STONES, GRATEFUL DEAD, CSNY, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE & SANTANA Altamont 1969 Reproduction Concert Poster
This is a high quality lithograph reproduction of the concert poster for the Rolling Stones disasterous 1969 free concert at Altamont Raceway in Livermore CA. "The Greatest Rock & Roll Band In The World", the Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, and in 2004 they were ranked #4 in Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
This was like no other tour the band had yet undertaken. Away from the stage since April 1967, the tour was notable for being Mick Taylor's first with the Stones, having replaced Brian Jones shortly before Jones' July death. Material was mostly from 1968's Beggars Banquet album and the not-quite-released-yet Let It Bleed.
At the close of their US tour, the band staged the Altamont Free Concert at the Altamont Speedway, east of San Francisco. Approximately 300,000 people attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a "Woodstock West." Part of the tour and the Altamont concert were documented in the film Gimme Shelter. By some accounts, the Hell's Angels were hired as security by the Rolling Stones, on the recommendation of the Grateful Dead, for 0 worth of beer — a story that has been denied by parties who were directly involved.
Although peaceful at first, over the course of the day, the mood of both the crowd and the Angels became progressively agitated, intoxicated and violent. The Angels had been drinking their free beer all day in front of the stage, and most were highly drunk. Fueled by LSD and amphetamines, the crowd had become antagonistic and unpredictable, attacking each other, the Angels, and the performers. By the time the Rolling Stones took stage in the early evening, the mood had taken a decidedly ugly turn as numerous fights had erupted between Angels and crowd members and within the crowd itself.
Footage from the documentary Gimme Shelter shows a concertgoer (seen in the film in a bright lime-green suit) moving to the front of the crowd and drawing a long-barreled revolver from his jacket. A space formed around him from people scrambling to get away, and a biker was shown knocking away the gun and stabbing him, killing the man. The gun was recovered and turned over to police. The Rolling Stones were unaware of the killing, and completed the remaining eight songs of their set without further significant incident. The concertgoer's autopsy confirmed he was high on methamphetamine when he died. The biker was arrested and tried for murder in the summer of 1971, but was acquitted after a jury examined the video evidence showing the man brandishing the revolver and concluded that he had acted in self-defense.
The Altamont concert is often contrasted with the Woodstock festival that took place less than four months earlier. While Woodstock represented "peace and love", Altamont came to be viewed as the end of the hippie era and the de facto conclusion of late-1960s American youth culture. A dark close to a tumultuous decade. This is a great poster for a sad moment in music history. Awesome image of a Hindu Goddess with a skull necklace holding a sleeping baby. This beautiful reproduction on heavy stock measures approx. 13 x 19" and is in mint condition. FREE handbills included!
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