Altamont Free Concert

Altamont Free Concert was a single-day, no-charge show staged at Altamont Speedway near Tracy, California, on December 6, 1969, as the closing date of the Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour. Billed informally as a West Coast answer to that summer's Woodstock festival, the bill also featured Santana, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The Hells Angels motorcycle club was engaged to handle security, a decision that became central to how the day is remembered. It was never repeated, and it is chiefly remembered today as the event that closed out the era of optimism the 1969 counterculture had opened

The concert's only edition ran December 6, 1969, drawing an estimated 300,000 people to a hastily chosen speedway site outside Tracy. Santana opened the afternoon and Jefferson Airplane followed without major incident, but online discussion of the day in the years since consistently points to the evening as when the mood turned, with crowd violence near the stage escalating once the Rolling Stones took the stage after dark. Attendee Meredith Hunter was fatally stabbed by a Hells Angel acting as security during the Stones' set, and three other deaths were recorded on site. The show was never staged again