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I understand that the Altamont free concert is widely understood to have served as the death knell of the optimism of the 1960s hippie movement. But I genuinely don't understand why Woodstock hadn't already accomplished that. Three people died. I appreciate that three people dying from negligence is less dramatic than one person being stabbed to death: but still, what kind of exchange rate is this?
Huh: in addition to the lone stabbing at Altamont, there were also three accidental deaths I hadn't heard about. The hope was that Altamont would be the "Woodstock of the West". I guess they got what they wanted, and then some.
Woodstock was planned for 50,000 people and ten times that number showed up. There were a couple accidental deaths, but no violence, despite the fact that security was woefully inadequate on paper. The myth was that a half million well-meaning people could overcome hardships like bad weather and traffic nightmares and still have a good time. Altamont was completely different from the beginning, with fights breaking out throughout the show. One of the biggest problems was that the stage was only about 3 feet off the ground, and there was a crush of people trying to climb on it throughout the show. The Hell's Angels they hired (for $500 in beer) to protect the stage area were drunk and unqualified, so there were constant scuffles in front of the stage. Even before Meredith Hunter was killed, the atmosphere was so bad that the Grateful Dead noped out. That this only happened a few months after Woodstock meant that the juxtaposition was fresh in people's minds, and it was easy to paint Altamont as the end of an era. It didn't help that across the pond, the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival was beset with similar problems.
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Well the original Woodstock had the benefit of there being a Documentary crew on site and, in the final cut, basically valorized the entire thing rather than focusing on the controversies or failings.
And I'm sure most people formed good memories of it in retrospect.
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