sour scene baby
First of all I'm not a fan of the rolling stones. I watched this movie because it's a documentary of a free concert that went to shit.
In 69 the stones along with some other bands played a free concert at altomonte speedway to a crowd of over 300 000 (that's almost the population of my home town)
The hells angels san francisco were invited to chaperone the stones to the stage, which they do in spectacular style but when trying to stop the tripped out kids from climbing on the stage, booze vs drugs turns into brawls and someone gets killed.
Some incredible scenes in this and it looks amazing, pristine. With older film stock there's a tendancy because of the film quality to be somewhat removed from the watching experience but this is so clean it's easy to become immersed.
My favourite scene is when Jagger is singing the haunting Under My Thumb and the camera kind of zooms in on this hells angel that looks exactly like the terminator. Meanwhile a random guy is having a strange meltdown on stage which no one seems to notice until he starts taking off his clothes and the angels snap into action and throw him off the stage - scary.
This is one of those brilliant documentaries that becomes so much more by happenstance like Capturing the Friedmans and The Staircase. There's a scene where Mick is being interviewed and he says that this event will be an example of how the people of america can behave at large gatherings and he's right, now it seems you can't have a school disco without someone being stabbed or a concert without someone being arrested or taken away in an ambulance so I guess it was all downhill from that 1969 concert only 4 months after woodstock.
YES - very good and you don't have to be a fan of the stones.
