Gimme Shelter

A documentary crew tails The Rolling Stones for a leg of their 1969 North American tour and unwittingly captures one of the nastiest, bloodiest all-day concerts in music history: the infamous Altamont Speedway show. Mostly pieced together from ambient handheld shots filmed at the festival and screened without narration, it's a stunning stream-of-consciousness presentation of the crowds, cultures and events that led to the angry, violent personality of the gig itself. It's stunning just how little foresight and planning went into this event. Two days before, organizers were still trying to settle on a venue with no mind paid to parking, waste management or security. Maybe that kind of approach could have worked for a smaller show, but with a crowd in excess of 300,000 showing up to experience what was portrayed as “The Woodstock of the West," the only possible outcome was total, unmitigated chaos. And that's what they get, as a pushy, balls-tripping audience runs headlong into a moody, fight-spoiling security outfit and lights a tragic set of fireworks. A painfully slow degradation of civility and humanity set to music, it's a dark counterpoint to the radiant, optimistic attitudes seen at Woodstock.

Solid documentary, Wise to show Stones performanes of all their hits at the beginning, then cuts back tthe last minute slapdash set up of a free concert at Altamont Speedway, Documenting the drug alcohol fueled escalating violence, starting the afternoon, and resulting in stabbing of concert goer by Hells Angels, Colossal miscalcuation by Stones, and the promoter by hiring criminal thugs Hells Angels as security, Exciting pumped up concert music vibe gives way to a somber, horrific end to the 60's, The nail in the coffin of the flower power hippe love era.