How Hell's Angels founder Sonny Barger killed era of 'peace and love' and blamed it on Rolling Stones
The year was 1969 when The Rolling Stones decided to hold a free concert at Altamont Speedway in California. While this concert was supposed to be a reply to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, the show rather ended in extreme tragedy. The concert took place on December 6 which induced some heavy acts Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana. Everything was supposed to lead to the ultimate return of The Rolling Stones which would be the defining moment. But everything was ruined by Sonny Barger.
Up until now, Barger blamed Mick Jagger and the highly decorated band The Rolling Stones for the gruesome incident. But is that the complete truth? Dubbed as the Maximum Leader of the ruthless Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, Barger died of liver cancer on June 29, 2022, aged 84. Now stories of his leadership and what happened on that fateful in California are hogging the limelight. Barger has always blamed the band for the tragedy at the concert. At Altamont, he maintained that Jagger and his band were to blame saying that they wanted "a dark scary environment to play Sympathy For The Devil." The Angels were being paid in beer and of course, they all got aggressively drunk. Soon enough brawls broke out and the gang raided the supporting acts, knocking out the lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, Marty Balin. Bikers could be seen beating concertgoers, some of them naked, with pool cues.
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Barger continued to blame Jagger and his band. He wrote in his autobiography, "Mick and the band’s egos seemed to want the crowd agitated and frenzied. I could no longer picture the Hells Angels playing the part of bodyguards for a bunch of sissy, marble-mouthed prima donnas." Fast forward to the moment when The Rolling Stones came on stage, a topless woman rushed onto the stage despite the Angels' efforts to steer her away. Barger said, "Keith Richards leaned over to me and said, 'Man, I’m sure it doesn’t take three or four great big Hells Angels to get that bird off the stage.' I just walked over to the edge of the stage and kicked her in the head."
How Hells Angels killed the era of 'peace and love'
The situation was yet to worsen. Sickened by the development, Richards announced that the band will not be playing until the violence comes to an end. Talking about the same, Barger wrote, "I stood next to him, and stuck my pistol into his side and told him to start playing his guitar or he was dead." Following this, an 18-year-old Black teen named Meredith Hunter tried to rush the stage and brandished his .22 caliber revolver As a result, he was stabbed in the neck, the head, and the back by a Hells Angel. He later died while on his way to the hospital. According to eyewitness accounts published by Rolling Stone just weeks after the deadly incident, a Hells Angel started the altercation by grabbing Hunter’s head and punching him. The biker then chased a retreating Hunter into the surrounding crowd, where about four other bikers pounced on him. Hunter’s tragic fate became entwined with a festival designed to showcase peace and love.
The incidents at the concert led some supporters and critics to conclude that the ethos of the 1960s counter-culture movement had died at the motorsports track during the chaotic and mind-bending events of 1969.
Barger was a hardened leader who had created a ravishing and charismatic image of himself. He was for long the public face of the notorious and frequently outlaw Angels and a founding member of the club’s Oakland, CA, chapter. However, the tales of his controlling behavior were never-ending. His radical nature was advocated by himself only. He wrote, "To become a real man, you need to join the Army and then do some time in jail. The slammer teaches you discipline and survival, and to be on time: when those doors open and close each day, you’d better be set." Moreover, he was no stranger to serving time in prison. His records include 10 years-to-life imprisonments in 1973 and 4 years in 1989. The very fact that he openly accepted killing the free and open nature of the celebration in the 60s in his autobiography tells the world that he held no remorse for the incident and blamed The Rolling Stones till the very end. Barger was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1983 and prostate cancer in 2010.