Altamont must have been a pretty radical concert... far before my time though!
Speaking of going straight and corporate, a good friend of mine in Ann Arbor Michigan, his parents are uber-conservative, GOP committee people, but in the 1960s they were smoking pot, taking LSD and big time followers of the MC5. I called him on Christmas day, and his mom knows I'm a big MC5 fan... she yelled out from the kitchen "KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERF@#KER!!!" at the top of her lungs.
Must have been an acid flashback...
:-)
Actually,"Cluster F**K" more appropriately comes to mind...
Like 300,000 attendees... thrown together with no planning....few sanitation facilities...desolate bare hills behind Livermore...announcements just days prior...Hells Angels for 'security'...batches of bad LSD and other drugs..and all for FREE!
It was really a Stones ego trip (Jagger himself sprang the concert idea publically; thought the Angels as security would be "cool"...) and a sorry fiasco of a "Western Woodstock" attempt.
See the movie "Gimme Shelter" which features documentary footage of the 'event' including the stabbing at the foot of the stage. Pretty sick.