Review of Gimme Shelter (2013) by Brendan C — 31 Jan 2013

This is a documentary about the tragic Altamont Speedway concert that the Rolling Stones put on in the month of December in the year 1969, while they were touring to promote their "Let It Bleed" album. They put on a free concert and had the Hells Angeles for security, and to control the crowd. When they started to play "Sympathy for the Devil" a fight broke out and 7 people were killed by the hells Angeles. One man charged at the stage with a gun, so one of the Angels stabbed him to death, and that may have just saved Mic Jagger's life. If he shot Jagger that would have made things so much worse, and that would have probably been a preview to John Lennon's murder. At the end of the film you see Jagger watching the footage of the incident, and another person is point out the man with the gun, and where the knife was in the Angels hand when he stabbed him. He looks so stunned and sad by what had happened. You could tell he really felt responsible for it. A lot of people know that people got killed at this concert, but a lot of people don't know that there were four births reported. This incident truly shows what drugs, sex, and rock and roll is like when it is all in one at a single moment.

I will say that I love the Rolling Stones, and their sixties stuff is some of my favorite music of all time, and I have listened to it over and over again. The film shows a lot of videos from concerts in the same year before the incident. The shows are crazy, but exciting. Life looked awesome for them, and everything was going great, and they kept writing better and better stuff. They were working on their next album "Sticky Fingers." One scene they were listening to the demo of "Wild Horses." They show that they were doing great in the studio, and the concerts were amazing, but you see the craziness of the show's, which is foreshadowing for the Altamont Speedway tragedy. It also helps add to the shock factor of what happened at that show. That is the style of this documentary.

What happened was that they started playing "Sympathy For The Devil," and a fight broke out in the middle of the song. Jagger stopped the song thinking it was just a fight and he told people to "Chill out." He didn't know that people had just died. When he started the song again, one of the Angeles whispered in his ear. Jagger continued to do his little dance for a second then walked to the front of the stage, and looked at the crowd with the worst expression on his face. He was able to get his cool back, then he continued the show as if it didn't happen. He thought that if he ended the show there would be riots so he decided to act normal. Every song after that he would have to tell everybody to chill out, because everybody was so crazy. Everybody in the audience either looked angry, high, happy, but they were all high. It was disturbing because Jagger seemed like he was begging for them to calm down. He seemed that way after the guard whispered in his ear. It was very disturbing to see everything at the event. People were getting naked in the place too. It was just awful. It truly shows how much drugs effect you and why you shouldnt do them.

They stopped playing "Sympathy for The Devil" for a long time after that. I saw them in concert in December of 2012, and that was the best song in concert. They sound way better today than in the sixties, because concert technology has gotten so much better. I think it is ironic that the hell's angels killed people during that song. I think that because hell's angel's sounds like a satanic name, and the song has the name devil in it. Also it had to have been hell at that concert, and it must have felt like the devil was there. They stopped their tour after that. The film ends with Gimme Shelter playing over the credits.