The Angels, The Stones and The Dead

Summary

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford – "The Angels, The Stones and The Dead"

Episode Date: February 6, 2026
Podcast: Cautionary Tales
Host: Tim Harford

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Overview of the Episode

In this episode, Tim Harford explores the myth and reality of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, focusing on their notorious involvement as “security” at major rock concerts in the late 1960s. Through the chaotic stories of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the Grateful Dead, Harford investigates how wishful thinking and desirability bias led counterculture icons to mistake violence for virtue—culminating in the tragic events at Altamont Speedway. The episode is a cautionary tale about ignoring evidence, the dangers of superficial alliances, and the high cost of wishful thinking.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hell’s Angels Crash the Beatles’ Christmas Party

• Setting the Scene (01:46–06:25)
  • The “peace and love” aura of the 1960s is sharply contrasted with the bikers’ arrival at the Beatles’ Apple Records office for a Christmas party.
  • George Harrison had met the Angels in LA and, “despite their fearsome reputation for violence, these angels seemed cordial enough.”
  • The Beatles naively welcomed them, telling staff,

    “They may look as though they are going to do you in, but don’t fear them or uptight them.” (02:58)

  • The party devolved into chaos: inebriated bikers giving beer to children, being aggressive when food was late, and trampling guests during a frenzied rush for turkey.
  • Harrison’s struggle to eject them is played for dark comedy, ending with his classic Britishism,

    “You know, bugger off.” (05:23)

2. Birth of a Myth: Counterculture and the Hell’s Angels

• Rock ‘n’ Roll Encounters (06:25–13:08)
  • The Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones admired the Angels, seeing them as counterculture allies.
  • At a Rolling Stones free concert in Hyde Park,

    “The 50 bikers at Hyde park were ersatz Hell’s Angels, cosplayers in leather and Nazi Stahlhelms, a pale imitation of the Angels in America.” (11:09)

  • The British event ends peacefully, but “no one is truly buying the peaceful intentions of these toughs.”

3. The True Nature of the Hell’s Angels

• Origins and Reputation (16:18–21:08)
  • The club’s roots: WWII veterans forming motorcycle gangs.
  • The Angels’ links to crime are well documented:

    “[The] FBI was pretty sure these rebels funded their lifestyle through drug dealing, extortion and a raft of other nefarious activities.” (17:04)

  • Despite this, counterculture figures like Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, and Timothy Leary embrace them—mistaking their anti-mainstream attitudes for kinship.
• Violent Reality:
  • The Angels attack antiwar protesters, shouting “America first, America for Americans” (18:55), revealing themselves not as peace-loving outsiders but reactionary “fascistic” (20:03) actors.
  • Harford introduces the concept of desirability bias: our tendency to see what we want to see—a key to understanding why the Angels’ violence was continually rationalized.

4. Wishful Thinking: Desirability Bias Explained

• (21:08–24:55)
  • Harford explains psychological studies showing how incentives and desire alter perception, including experiments with wheat prices and the 2016 U.S. election—mirroring the dynamic with the Angels.

  • “We often find it hard to distinguish between what is true and what we wish were true, and it can have a decidedly detrimental effect on our lives.” (21:14)

5. Altamont: From “Woodstock West” to Violence

• Descent into Chaos (32:43–41:14)

  • After failed planning and venue changes, the Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead seek the Hell’s Angels to “police” their free concert at Altamont Speedway.
  • The payment: $500 “worth of beer to guard the stage, the equipment and the performers.” (32:43)
  • The logistics were disastrous: inadequate stage, bad sound, bottlenecked crowds.
  • The Angels, assigned to “look menacing,” escalate fights with fans, drawing weapons. Santana’s set starts with knives drawn and blood spilled. Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin is knocked out by a biker; Stephen Stills is stabbed.

    “If you don’t want the tiger to eat your lunch guests, don’t invite the fucking tiger to lunch.”
    —David Crosby (37:36)

  • The Grateful Dead, shocked, “scurried back to the helipad” and refuse to play.

• The Death of Meredith Hunter (39:11–41:00)

  • During the Stones’ set, 18-year-old Meredith Hunter is stabbed and killed by a Hell’s Angel; his weapon—a revolver—makes the event even murkier.
  • The Stones flee the area by helicopter as the atmosphere “resemble[s] Dante’s vision of hell.” (34:57)

  • “A man died before their eyes. Do they give a shit?”
    —Rolling Stone Magazine (41:46)

6. Aftermath and Blame

• (41:14–44:17)
  • The Stones face criticism from the public and press. The Angels are enraged at their scapegoating, and rumors swirl of a contract out on Mick Jagger.
  • Bandleader Sonny Barger calls out Jagger:

    “He used us for dupes, man.” (42:34)

  • Keith Richards reflects on the fatal error:

    “The Dead should have known. The Angels shouldn’t have been asked to do the job.” (41:28)

  • Mick Jagger, sobered by the events, admits:

    “I’d rather have had the cops.” (44:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Beatle naivety:

  “They may look as though they are going to do you in, but don’t fear them.”
  —Beatles’ memo to staff (02:58)

• British disarmament:

  “You know, bugger off.”
  —George Harrison to the Angels (05:23)

• Altamont and wishful thinking:

  “We often find it hard to distinguish between what is true and what we wish were true…”
  —Tim Harford (21:14)

• David Crosby’s warning:

  “If you don’t want the tiger to eat your lunch guests, don’t invite the fucking tiger to lunch.” (37:36)

• Keith Richards’ regret about policing:

  “I’d rather have had the cops.” (44:17)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:46–06:25 – The Beatles’ Hell's Angels Christmas disaster
• 06:25–13:08 – Stones’ Hyde Park gig and transatlantic Hell’s Angels myth
• 16:18–21:08 – The true nature and politics of the Hell’s Angels
• 21:08–24:55 – Desirability bias and wishful thinking explained
• 32:43–41:14 – Altamont’s build-up and mayhem
• 39:11–41:00 – Meredith Hunter’s death
• 41:14–44:17 – Fallout, blame, and the end of rock’s innocence

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Episode Tone & Closing Reflection

Tim Harford employs a wry, skeptical, and storytelling tone that gently mocks 1960s naiveté while warning of real-world consequences. The parable is clear: wishful thinking can blind us to obvious danger, with tragic results. The myth of the lovable rebel is punctured by the cold reality of violence, and Harford’s tale is as cautionary for modern listeners—mystifying countercultural symbols or ignoring evidence at our peril.

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For further reading and sources, visit timharford.com.

Transcript

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[Tim Harford]

Pushkin. The 1960s are mythologized as a decade of peace and love. But peace and love definitely wasn't the vibe outside the Beatles London offices. The genteel calm of Savile Road was shattered by the unfamiliar rumble of powerful motorcycle engines. And sitting astride these souped up Harley Davidsons are a dozen American Hell's Angels pulling up at the Apple Records building well in time for the Beatles 1968 Christmas party, George Harrison had met the bikers in LA. Despite their fearsome reputation for violence, these angels seemed cordial enough. And since they were planning a European jaunt, Harrison offered to put them up in the Beatles offices. In a stern memo to staff, the Beatles said, they may look as though.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

They are going to do you in, but don't fear them or uptight them. Try to assist them without neglecting your Apple business and without letting them take control.

[Tim Harford]

By the time the guests assembled for the Christmas Christmas party, the bikers were fully ensconced in the building and very much in control George Harrison wasn't there, but the other Beatles had brought their children along to enjoy magic shows and a ventriloquist act. What they got were Hell's Angels, said to be drunk and stoned and high out of their minds. One guest lost his three three year old son in the confusion. The child was located not on the knee of Santa Claus, but in the lap of an angel who was giving him gulps of beer. The bikers were less agreeable with the adult partygoers and quite prepared to do them in.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

What the fuck is going on in this place?

[Tim Harford]

Screamed an angel called Frisco Pete at John Lennon.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

We want to eat.

[Tim Harford]

Aggrieved by a delay in serving food, the bikers became surly and aggressive, souring the holiday mood. A guest who pleaded for calm was punched. Luckily for John Lennon, a 43 pound turkey, reputedly the largest available in all of Britain, was suddenly carried into the room. They ripped the turkey to pieces, said a witness, trampling young children underfoot to get to it. I've never seen anything like it. The Beatles had had their fill of these greasy guests and summoned George Harrison to evict them. His initial attempts to encourage their departure were perhaps too subtle.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Do you dig us? But don't you?

[Tim Harford]

They asked Harrison confused. The so called quiet beetle again couched his request that they depart in soothing spiritual terms to the continued bafflement of the bikers. Exasperated, Harrison changed tack.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

You know, bugger off.

[Tim Harford]

The Apple employees in the room drew breath and waited for the fists to fly. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to another cautionary tale. Just to be clear, in Britain, bugger off isn't the politest way to ask guests to leave. But perhaps the quaintness of this Britishism or George Harrison's soft Liverpudlian accent disarmed the Hell's Angels.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Well, if you put it that way.

[Tim Harford]

George, said the Angels. And away they roared up Savile Row. The Beatles had gotten off lightly, but they weren't alone in mistaking the Hell's Angels for harmless, lovable rogues. Many leading figures in the 60s, counterculture writers, actors, rock stars courted the Angels, thinking them allies in the war against the square world. Of all the cheerleaders in the music community for the Hell's Angels, none were more influential than the Grateful Dead, those demigods of the San Francisco hippie scene. The Dead had played at a Hell's Angels party back in 67, and the bikers somewhat adopted the band, and the power mysteriously failed at a subsequent gig The Angels stepped in to guard the generators and cabling. So on a trip to London, the Grateful Dead's manager waxed lyrical about the Angels to none other than the Rolling Stones, how the bikers were a cost effective and crucially cool alternative for policing concerts.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

He trusted those cats, man, remarked the.

[Tim Harford]

Stones guitarist Keith Richards. It certainly planted an idea with the self styled bad boys of rock. The Beatles and the Stones were firm friends. The two bands socialised together, appeared on each other's records and were even considering merging their back office operations. It's rather odd then, that the debacle of the Beatles Christmas party hadn't made a bigger impression on Mick Jagger and his bandmates, warning them to steer well clear of the likes of Frisco Pete.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

You never saw a police force like.

[Tim Harford]

It, said the Stones bass player Bill Wyman.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Black leather suits studded to the eyeballs, Nazi helmets, swastikas and crosses everywhere.

[Tim Harford]

It's a sweltering July day in London's leafy Hyde Park. Indeed, it's so hot that the roadies can't keep the band's guitars in tune. And fans gathering for that afternoon's free gig are diving into the park's lake, the Serpentine, to cool off. At least a quarter of a million young people are expected to swarm the venue, so 50 British Hell's Angels have been recruited to act as what Wyman described as heavy men. They arrive dressed like some greasy contingent of Himmler's ss.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Swastika was out before the Nazis was.

[Tim Harford]

Even thought of, said one biker, defending his choice of attire.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

And it was a sign of peace.

[Tim Harford]

No one is truly buying the peaceful intentions of these toughs, though, and the Stones head of security reads them the riot act. If any of the bikers have come for a brawl, he'll see them after the concert and he'll be armed with a shotgun. Despite the menacing appearance of this so called leather militia, the event begins without a hitch. The bikers content themselves with guarding the Stones, many girlfriends and groupies, and occasionally aiding fans who've wilted in the heat. There are some hiccups, of course, but the Stones plan to release thousands of white bikes butterflies, to memorialise the loss of Brian Jones, a founder member of the band who drowned in his pool just days earlier. Legend has it that a drunken biker fell on a box of these butterflies, crushing the poor creatures inside. The Rolling Stones, by their own admission, had played badly out of tune and out of tempo, but the gig was still deemed a success. Mick Jagger, whose singing had been hobbled both by Laryngitis and Hay Fever said fans weren't that bothered by the quality of his performance anyway.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

It's an excuse as well as a groove for them to all come together to join hands and embrace each other.

[Tim Harford]

And things had indeed passed off peacefully. Very peacefully. There were virtually no arrests, and afterwards, fans had enthusiastically gathered up their trash, having been promised free records for every three bags they collected. How much of this serenity was down to the Hell's Angels is debatable. London's parks have their own police force. These bobbies were monitoring the crowd closely, ready to move in at the first stop sign of trouble. The black clad Angels might have been fitting stage props to burnish the Rolling Stones bad boy image, but they certainly weren't replacing the actual cops. To their credit, the bikers hadn't started any trouble of their own, which, given the fearsome reputation of this outlaw motorcycle club, might surprise you. That's because the heavy men enlisted by the Rolling Stones weren't really hell's Angels. The 50 bikers at Hyde park were ersatz Hell's Angels, cosplayers in leather and Nazi Stahlhelms, a pale imitation of the Angels in America. Indeed, when Frisco Pete and his friends had ridden through London the previous winter, they'd been shocked to see locals with no affiliation to the club sporting Hell's Angels badges. They decided to stamp out these counterfeiters by establishing official angel chapters and recruiting only bikers who met their particular standards of deportment. And what were these behavioural norms? The Rolling Stones would soon find out. Cautionary tales will return in a moment.

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[Tim Harford]

The origins of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club are disputed, but it's broadly accepted. The seeds were sown in California by returning World War II veterans, often riding army surplus Harley Davidsons. Groups of riders formed and amalgamated with chapters of the Hell's Angels, gradually being established across America. By the mid-1960s, the Angels were attracting national attention and for all the wrong reasons. Bill Ray, a photojournalist with the magazine Life, hitched a ride with them.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

They always had plenty of money for gas and beer. Their money had to come from somewhere. But none of them ever worked.

[Tim Harford]

The FBI was pretty sure these rebels funded their lifestyle through drug dealing, extortion and a raft of other nefarious activities. Then there was their propensity for violence. Ray saw the Angels he'd befriended beat the holy hell out of a rival gang. He said the uncompromising message to outsiders.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Get out of the way or go to hell.

[Tim Harford]

Since the Angels enthusiastically embraced drugs and just as enthusiastically rejected middle class mores, the beatniks, heads and hippies of the burgeoning 1960s counterculture assumed these bikers were kindred spirits. The celebrities of the beet world. Poet Allen Ginsberg, writer Ken Kesey and LSD advocate Timothy Leary even broke bread with the Angels, dropping acid with them, smoking dope and listening to the Stones on a hi fi together. In fact, there's a lyric from the Rolling Stones hit Sympathy for the Devil which neatly articulates the belief that such outlaws were actually heroes standing up against the corruption and hypocrisy of mainstream society. Just as every cop is a criminal. Begins one verse and all the sinners saints. When 15,000 anti war demonstrators streamed down Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue, they reasonably thought the authorities would be their sole adversaries. The march was supposed to to end at the Oakland army terminal where men and material were being shipped off to the unpopular war in Vietnam. But the activists were halted by a phalanx of riot police. The leaders of the march went forward to confer with the police chief when out of nowhere, a dozen or more Hell's Angels assaulted them. Traitors, Communists. Yelled the bikers, followed by more punches and shouts of America first, America for Americans. The police sprang to the defense of the bewildered protesters, arresting several angels. Licking their wounds, the activists simply couldn't comprehend what had just gone down. The writer, Hunter S. Thompson, was at the demo working on a book all about the Angels. He witnessed the incredulity of the marchers. Surely the bikers should be on our side. The Angels had to be won over, went their logic. So Alan Ginsberg was sent to open the talks. According to Thompson, the swastikas worn by the bikers were a worrying sign of their real allegiance.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

The Angels collective viewpoint has always been fascistic. They had the same kind of retrograde patriotism that motivates the Klu Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.

[Tim Harford]

The Angels weren't just supportive of the war in Vietnam. They were willing to enter the fray. Sonny Barger, the de facto leader of the bikers, sent a telegram to President Johnson suggesting his gang be dropped behind enemy lines to terrorise the Viet Cong. So Ginsburg's peace mission went about as badly as you'd expect. At one point, the poet even told the biker chieftain that he loved him. Sonny didn't know what the hell to say, laughed a fellow Angel. The Angels weren't won over to support the peace protesters, but nor did they stage any more violent counter demos. Sonny Barger said cracking the skulls of the UN American marchers would only produce.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Sympathy for this mob of traitors.

[Tim Harford]

That's a pretty clear declaration of the Angels position. But Hunter S. Thompson said some in the counterculture still saw this as a sign that the Angels were gradually coming round to the hippie point of view. We often find it hard to distinguish between what is true and what we wish were true, and it can have a decidedly detrimental effect on our lives. Colloquially we call it wishful thinking, but really it's a bias, the desirability bias, and it's been measured in several studies. The behavioral economist Guy Mairaz once recruited a bunch of ordinary people and randomly assigned them to imagine themselves to be farmers or bakers. They were shown a graph and told it was the historical fluctuations of wheat prices. Then they were asked to predict the future price of wheat. Would it go up or would it go down? They'd be rewarded if their predictions came true, and in addition, the so called farmers would get extra payment if wheat prices went up, while the bakers got extra cash if wheat prices fell. In this experiment, the incentive is to make the most accurate prediction that you can and meanwhile hope that the wheat price moves up if you're playing a farmer and down if you're playing a baker. And yet, from exactly the same data, the pretend bakers predicted a dip in the cost of wheat and the pretend farmers forecast a rise. Both sides predicted what they wanted to wishful thinking in its purest form. The desirability bias appears in politics too, of course. In 2016, a team of psychologists studied groups of American voters. Some were Trump supporters who doubted their man would actually win, while others backed Hillary Clinton but also thought she'd lose. These voters were then shown polling data that indeed had bad news about their candidate's chances, but also some indications they might win. The psychologists found that the Clinton voters suddenly felt Hillary was more likely to take the White House. Of course, on the same data, the Trump supporters were now convinced that he would claim victory too. Both groups had assimilated the good news into their new prediction of the election, their favoured outcome, but ignored the bad. In 1969, the Stones and the Dead were also ignoring the bad news about the Hell's Angels and there was plenty of it. Perhaps they didn't believe the corporate newspapers and their square reporters. Of course mainstream society would demonise the Angels because the Angels, just like the counterculture, rejected the mainstream. But what of the violence at the Berkeley war march and Hunter S. Thompson's book setting out the Bikers Troubling Politics and Behaviour? Its publication had made Thompson a national celebrity, and he went on numerous TV shows to talk frankly about his two years living with the Angels. The postscript to that book alone should have given anyone pause for thought about the biker gang.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

I pushed my look a little too far and got badly stomped by four or five Angels.

[Tim Harford]

Are these really the sort of people that the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones wanted doing their concert? Security seems a sure fire recipe for indiscriminate violence. The Dead's Jerry Garcia was especially fond of the Angels, praising their straightforwardness.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

They're brutal, but their brutality is really only honesty.

[Tim Harford]

I'm reminded of a viral tweet from 2015 by author Adrian Bott. It goes I never thought leopards would eat my face, Sobs woman who voted for the leopards Eating People's faces party. The Rolling Stones US tour of late 1969 was a roaring success, not to mention a money spinner. Audiences were pleased to see the band who hadn't played America in years, but reporters repeatedly grumbled about the steep ticket prices. Perhaps stung by these insinuations of greed, but also also motivated by a regret that they had not played Woodstock that summer. The Stones were plotting a free show, a Woodstock of the west, to end their time in America. The Grateful Dead would be on the bill, and they suggested the venue be San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Unfortunately, the Dead announced the concert without asking the city authorities, nor checking if any other events clashed with the proposed gig they did. A big football game was scheduled, so Golden Gate park, with its amenities, police department and transport links, was off the table. With time ticking, a racing circuit a few miles north of the city was bright booked, and the Stones roadies began hurriedly constructing a stage. But even as they hammered away, the deal with the track's owners was falling apart. With some concertgoers already en route to the free show, the price for using the raceway was suddenly jacked up. So a frantic search began for a replacement. Hearing of the Stones predicament, the proprietor of another race circuit called with an offer. He'd happily host the festival. The publicity would benefit his venue, and the Altamont Speedway definitely needed some good press. Though only an hour or so inland from San Francisco, it was a world away. While San Francisco was lush and picturesque, Altamont was dry and barren. While the city was humming with hippie good vibes, Altamont was a rural and conservative backwater. There were no decent transport links, too few parking spaces, and certainly not enough bathrooms for 300,000 music fans. But still, the roadies tore up their original stage and trucked into it to Altamont. As they assembled it again, a new problem presented itself at the first racetrack. This stage had been at the top of a slope At Altamont, they had to build it at the foot of an incline. A general rule is that this is unwise, since gravity pushes crowds downhill and hard up against the stage. If you have no other choice, then a high stage helps prevent fans invading the performance space. But the stage they'd brought with them was just three feet high. None of this was ideal, but geography was acting against the Stones in a far more sinister way. At the suggestion of the Grateful Dead, they agreed to have the Hell's Angels act as security at the other proposed venues. These Angels would have been recruited from chapters well known to the dead and trusted by them. But Altamont was in the East Bay, and the East Bay was very much the territory of the Hell's Angels, ruled by one sunny barger. Cautionary Tales will be back in a moment.

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[Tim Harford]

With the aid of some chemical stimulation, the roadies finished the altamont stage. As December 6 dawned, a sound system was also rigged together using bits and bobs from each of the acts appearing. It wasn't great, but it worked. Just volunteers had been frantically tie dyeing great banners to decorate the stage, but nothing could bring much colour or cheer to the dismal raceway. If attendees were hoping for a repeat of the good vibes and togetherness of that summer's Woodstock, they were in for a rude awakening. It was only after most of the other concertgoers had assembled that around a hundred Hell's Angels rode in. They drove through the throng and parked their bikes in front of the low stage. This crowded real estate would become a flashpoint as fans flowed down the slope, jostling to hear and see. Better, they'd swamp this area, banging into and knocking over the prized Harley Davidsons of the Angels. There remains much dispute about the actual deal brokered with Sonny Barger and his bikers. The accepted story is that they were offered $500 worth of beer to guard the stage, the equipment and the performers. The bikers said they merely agreed to sit on the stage, drink beer and look menacing, and spat on. The idea that they were there to police anyone but Grace Slick, whose band Jefferson Airplane were playing, was clear what she expected of the bikers. People get weird and you need people like the Angels to keep them in line. And people got weird, very weird, almost as soon as the music began. Keith Richards had been at the site all night, going ahead of his fellow Rolling Stones. To him, Altamont resembled Dante's vision of hell.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

It was a descent to caveman level. Thanks to Sunny Barger and his lot and bad red wine and bad acid.

[Tim Harford]

Out of their minds. Some hippies stripped naked and clambered over the stage, the Angels and their bikes. Santana was the first band to play, and knives were drawn and blood spilled before their opening song was done. Jefferson Airplane followed, and now the Hell's Angels flailed at the crowd with the fat ends of pool cues cracking skulls. Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane had had enough of the unfolding savagery. Seeing Angels assaulting yet another music fan, Balin threw his tambourine at the attackers. A biker known as Animal punched Bailey, knocking him out. Coming to his senses, Balin leapt down from the stage to intervene once again in the brawling. Fists and pool cues were flying. Grace Slick pleaded into her microphone.

[Odoo Advertiser]

No.

[Tim Harford]

No, stop it.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Please be kind. Please be kind.

[Tim Harford]

Grace didn't have her contact lenses in, so to her the violent melee and the front row was just a nightmarish blur. You've got to keep your bodies off.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Each other unless you intend love, she.

[Tim Harford]

Told the brawlers, as one by one, her bandmate stopped playing and took refuge behind the drum kit. Animal approached Marty Balin, apologizing for punching him, but recommending he show the Hells Angels more respect in future. Fuck you, replied the musician. Animal knocked Banan out again. The Flying Burrito Brothers came next, then Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. During their set, Stephen Stills was stabbed in the leg by an angel armed with a sharpened wheel spoke. Still's bandmate, David Crosby, was unsurprised by this turn of events. Unlike his fellow musicians, Crosby seemed clear eyed about the bikers.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

If you don't want the tiger to eat your lunch guests, don't invite the fucking tiger to lunch.

[Tim Harford]

But where were the people who'd suggested inviting the tiger The Grateful Dead had just helicoptered in and crossing the site, they'd noticed many unfamiliar, unfriendly faces among the Hell's Angels. Hearing of the unfolding violence and noting the sour mood, they agreed, this isn't a place for us, and scurried back to the helipad. This left a gap in the schedule. Most of the Rolling Stones had flown in Mick Jagger taking a punch from a drugged up gig goer moments after their arrival. But Bill Wyman missed the flight, so Altamont endured an increasingly tense hiatus until he arrived. It was cold and inkily blank black. When the Stones is Set finally began under blood red stage lights. Jumping Jack Flash was followed by Carol, then Sympathy for the Devil. But scuffles that had started even before their show began intensified. Jagger stopped singing.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Brothers and sisters, why are we fighting? We don't want to fight.

[iHeart Advertising Host]

Come on.

[Tim Harford]

The singer then encouraged the steadily encroaching fans to instead sit down. Thinking he'd calmed tensions, the song resumed. The stage still bristled with angels who crisscrossed in front of Jagger at will, jumping into the crowd as the mood took them to dole out more beatings. Then during Under My Thumb, a disturbance erupted to Jagger's left. In a section of the crowd illuminated by the stage lights, a thin, rangy teenager in a lime green suit is surrounded by bikers. A revolver glints in his hand, the blade of a large knife in the hand of an angel. The 18 year old Meredith Hunter came off worse in the encounter. The knife plunged into his neck and back five times before his crumpled body was stomped on by more bikers. He died before a chopper taking him to hospital could take off. Keith Richards vowed that the Stones would.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Split if those cats don't stop beating everyone in sight.

[Tim Harford]

But the show went on under the increasingly hostile glares of Sonny Barger and his men. Finally, a helicopter pilot approached bassist Bill Wyman. His was the last flight out, he explained, and the Stones better get aboard now if they wanted to attack. Escape. In a scene reminiscent of the Vietnam War, the Stones and their entourage fled.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

We piled in on top of each other. It couldn't even lift off. That's how full it was.

[Tim Harford]

Back in their hotel, the enormity of what had just occurred was dawning on the band. Mick Jagger was said to be blaming himself and even suggested quitting rock and roll altogether. Keith Richards wasn't so sure.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

The dead should have known. The Angels shouldn't have been asked to do the job.

[Tim Harford]

But Richards thought the fans at Altamont shared the blame too.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

People were just asking for it. All those nude fat people just asking for it.

[Tim Harford]

But the music press knew who to blame and was excoriating. Rolling Stone, a magazine named in honour of the band, said Altamont had been the product of diabolical egotism, ineptitude and a fundamental lack of concern for humanity. The magazine said of the Stones, a man died before their eyes. Do they give a shit? But Mick and the boys had more to worry about than their reputation. Sonny Barger was deeply unhappy with them too. He called a radio phoning show and angrily ranted, mick Jagger put it all on us.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

He used us for dupes, man.

[Tim Harford]

One angel was arrested for the murder of Meredith Hunter, but was controversially cleared by a jury. The white angel had acted in self defence, they decided, when confronted by the armed black teen. Sonny Barger and his bikers felt that what with legal fees and reputational damage, Mick Jagger owed them $50,000. And rumours swirled that until this debt was paid, a contract was out on Jagger's life. Unsurprisingly, the Stones began to look over their shoulders. Backstage roadies carried their union cards so no assassin could slip in amongst them. The band also shunned hotel room service for fear fear of poisoning, and they checked in under assumed names.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

Keith Richards liked the alias Count Ziggin Puss.

[Tim Harford]

Sonny Barger, who incidentally spent 13 years in prison for various crimes but beat a murder rap, was more coy about the feud.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

If there was a contract out on McJagger, then he'd be dead. It's that simple. He wouldn't still be singing.

[Tim Harford]

Flying home to London, Keith Richards tried to tamp down the criticism over Altamont, telling reporters the gig had been well organized.

[Hell's Angels Member / Interviewee]

But a few tempers got frayed.

[Tim Harford]

Coming as it did in the dying days of the 1960s, Altamont is often portrayed as the death knell of the decade. Altamont was the end of rock's innocence, said one San Francisco paper. It's certainly an argument, and one still hotly disputed, but Altamont definitely changed. The Stones, Mick Jagger and the band had a rocky relationship with the police. Prior to Altamont, the singer had even faced the prospect of a prison sentence on trumped up drugs charges. This might well explain his interest in having the Angels police his gigs. But the killing at Altamont changed that. He moodily said, I'd rather have had the cops. Key sources for this episode include Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson, Keith Richards on Keith Richards, edited by Sean Egan, and the Stones memoirs Life by Keith Richards and Stone Alone by Bill Wyman. For a full list of our sources, visit timharford.com Cautionary Tales is written in by me, Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Ben Nadaff Haffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harrison, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jopp, Misea Munro, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brodie, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London I North Gloria Barr and Lucy Rowe if you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin fm. Plus.

[iHeart Radio Advertiser]

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[Janice Torres and Austin Hankwitz]

Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We host the podcast Mind the Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.

[iHeart Advertising Host]

We're back for season four to talk to some incredible small business owners.

[Janice Torres and Austin Hankwitz]

The big thing about working at tech.

[Tim Harford]

Is that it's ever evolving, ever changing. Everyone's a race rookie.

[iHeart Advertising Host]

That's how fast the industry is changing.

[Odoo Advertiser]

So what I'm really excited about is.

[Tim Harford]

To be part of that change.

[Janice Torres and Austin Hankwitz]

So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[iHeart Advertising Host]

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