He would not have to deal with any of that, anyway. “I bet you don’t have any bullets for it.” It would just be there to scare off any hoodlums who decided to pick on a black teenager at a rock ‘n’ roll show. It was just like her brother to act tough but not even be capable of following through. “You know what happens to people who look like us,” he told her. Meredith was receptive enough to his sister’s concerns that he decided he was going to protect himself at the concert at the Altamont Speedway. He wore big-brimmed hats and colorful jackets, sometimes with matching nail polish on his fingers, and there was a certain swagger to his walk, as if he were more comfortable in his skin than all the other teenage boys and girls still adjusting to their adult bodies. He would use Tide detergent and vinegar to reverse-engineer his hair into a natural do, fluffing it out into a small Afro. Meredith was six-foot-two, with his father’s naturally straight hair. Being out in the countryside for the day with his girlfriend and his friends, listening to music, interacting with thousands of like-minded souls – what could be better? He did not much care about the Rolling Stones, but the idea of soaking in the love and warmth and companionship that came from hundreds of thousands of well-meaning young people gathered together was too tempting to pass up. He had been to the Monterey Jazz Festival and enjoyed himself, and hoped for another glorious day of sunshine and good vibes and music. Word spread, in late November and early December 1969, about a huge free concert set to come to the Bay Area, and 18-year-old Meredith Hunter told his sister Dixie he was thinking of attending. Gimme Shelter, the legendary documentary by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, had shown moviegoers the moment of his death, but what did we know of the last day of his life? In this excerpt, Austerlitz focuses on Meredith Hunter, the 18-year-old African-American man who never returned home from the show. Looking at the musicians, fans, filmmakers, bikers and journalists present that day, the book – out Tuesday – places the legendarily disastrous show in the context of the political and social changes of the era. Saul Austerlitz’s new book Just a Shot Away: Peace, Love, and Tragedy With the Rolling Stones at Altamont is the story of the concert that was going to be the West Coast Woodstock, and another triumph of the 1960s counterculture.
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