A couple of days before Biddle had reached San Francisco, we had begun to pick up local radio stations. There was a lot of talk on the radio about a free concert in the Bay Area that weekend that was to feature the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, and many more bands.
The specific location of the concert kept changing, but as things ended up it was to take place Saturday, 6 December 1969, at somewhere called the Altamont Speedway in Tracy, Calif., about 60 miles east of San Francisco.
We were halfway around the world when Woodstock happened in August, so I was really psyched about the possibility of going to what was being called Woodstock West. Of course, on the day of the concert, I had duty. Considering what happened at Altamont that day, I’m glad I wasn’t there.
You can get an extensive report on the concert in the January 1970 issue of Rolling Stone. The article was entitled “The Rolling Stones Disaster at Altamont: Let It Bleed.” (The Stones’ album — “Let It Bleed” — had come out the day before the concert.) Here’s the link to the Rolling Stone (newsmagazine) article. I also recommend the documentary, Gimme Shelter, as a great look at the event that marked the end of the brief era of “peace and love.”
I had a pretty quiet day. Stood morning quarterdeck watch, then watched some college football.
ENS Curran and I had been classmates at Boston College, though we did not know each other then. We had a mutual acquaintance, however, who lived in San Francisco. Maury Wolohan was a native of San Francisco and I was surprised to find someone from so far away as my roommate at BC during our freshman and sophomore years. In those years, he and Steve had both been members of the University Chorale. Maury had transferred to UC Berkeley to get his degree in architecture. He offered to drive Steve and me around on Sunday, 7 December.
Maury had just gotten off active duty in the Army Reserve at Fort Leonard Wood and, being back in San Francisco, had returned, as my journal noted, to being “a head — smokes, etc.” He drove us around the city and over to Sausalito.
Arrangements he made for us that night, however, were special. We went to the concert at Fillmore West. The lineup for December 4-7 featured The Flock and Humble Pie and was headlined by the Grateful Dead. I was then and am now a fan of the Dead, and that was the only time I saw them live.
Humble Pie, an English band, featured a young guitarist named Peter Frampton. He became pretty well-known a few years later. 🙂 Here’s a video from another 1969 performance.
I tracked down a replica poster for the show and found a recording of the Grateful Dead performance that night. The Dead were, at best, mediocre. Some attributed it to them being bummed by what had occurred the night before at Altamont. Seems understandable. In my journal, I wrote about the evening, “Fantastic. Smell of grass was constant.” Indeed, I remember being offered a toke of a joint that was being passed around. Being a good Navy ensign, I declined.
Of all the performances that night, however, it was that of The Flock, the least heralded of the three, that I remember most. The Flock was a jazzy group and featured an electric violin. The sound that guy pulled out of that violin was at times painful. Not the most pleasant memory, just the strongest. This is a long (7:16) clip of the introduction to their shows in 1969. It does not include painful violin.
It was a classic Sixties night for me. Maybe I didn’t get to Woodstock, but I saw the Grateful Dead at Fillmore West in San Francisco in December 1969, the weekend of Altamont. It’s historic, man!