I just watched the Maysles Brothers’ Gimme Shelter. Several stunning things about the film:
1) It’s amazing how much the aspects of the Altamont concert considered a “bum trip” at the time are par for the course now: proto-crowd surfing, proto-moshing, proto-slamdancing, sexual assault, musicians alternating between their usual “stirring up the kids” poses and “everybody be cool” I’m-here-to-save-the-day would-be soporifics.
2) The Rolling Stones are pretty unbelievable in a live setting, even when people are brandishing guns and getting stabbed to death. The Missus and I have had several debates about whether Jagger was ever “sexy”–her theory is that since he’s a man and a huge rich rock star, society accomodates him in its view of what’s attractive, a luxury not afforded to the Janis Joplins of the world; mine is that if someone can move like that and sing like that, he (or she–think of Patti Smith) has earned the right to be thought of as sexy regardless of how cadaverous they happen to look. But I think he’s pretty sexy in this film.
3) Obviously the entire situation is eerily reminiscent of Woodstock ’99, the difference being that the thugs who came ready for violence at W99 weren’t a small group of Hell’s Angels, but the thousands upon thousands of meatheads who comprised the audience–as well as the five or six meatheads who comprised Limp Bizkit.
4) The Criterion DVD edition of the film includes excerpts from San Fran’s free-form FM radio stalwart KSAN’s four hour post-show wrap-up, in which they took calls from everyone from the band’s road manager to guys from the Angels. Imagine an FM station being given license to take phone calls for four hours in this day and age.