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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=musicNews&storyID=1955673Stones to Play First Free Concert Since Altamont
Mon December 23, 2002 05:58 PM ET
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones announced plans on Monday to play their first free concert since the Altamont debacle in California 33 years ago when the Hells Angels turned a "thank you" show into a bloodbath.
The new concert, scheduled for Feb. 6 at the 20,000-capacity Staples Center in Los Angeles, promises to be a more sedate affair. It will raise awareness of global warming, the band's publicity firm Rogers & Cowan said in a statement.
Producer Steve Bing, a key Democrat fundraiser and father of model Elizabeth Hurley's baby boy, will pay for the show, which the band is organizing with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonpartisan environmental lobby group.
"The Rolling Stones' commitment will help build unprecedented support for NRDC efforts to fight global warming," council president John H. Adams said in the statement. "The Rolling Stones deserve a standing ovation for putting the environment on center stage."
A band spokeswoman said she did not know how the band came to be concerned about global warming, or how it became associated with the NRDC.
U.S. fans can apply once for two free tickets by logging on to a Web site (
http://www.nrdcstonesconcert.org) or by mailing an application, both by Jan. 6. No donation is required. There will be 6,000 winners randomly selected from the applications in January.
The Rolling Stones have generally eschewed high-profile charity concerts in favor of private deeds. Notable exceptions include a 1973 fundraiser in Los Angeles for Nicaraguan earthquake victims, and two court-ordered Toronto concerts for the blind in 1979 after guitarist Keith Richards was arrested for heroin possession.
The free show comes at the end of the group's "Licks" North American tour, which began in Boston last September and will gross an estimated $120 million. The band will then begin an Australian leg before playing Japan, possibly other Asian countries and then Europe.
The 1969 Altamont show, near San Francisco, also came at the end of a successful tour. But bad planning turned the event into a fiasco. The Stones hired members of the local Hells Angels chapter to provide security. They drove their motorbikes through the 500,000-strong crowd and clubbed fans with pool cues as the band looked on helplessly.
One fan, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed to death as he appeared to point a gun at the stage. The incident was captured on the documentary "Gimme Shelter."
