Altamont: An Eyewitness Account

The Rosy Apocalypse

ALTAMONT, 6th December, 1969. The name itself is fraught with menace – its flinty suggestive syllables (altar-mountain-tumult) reinforcing biblical overtones. ("The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world...") Altamont has become infamous as the apocalyptic moment known as the end of the Sixties, the moment when the termite-riddled walls of the New Jerusalem finally came tumbling down.