Four months after the Woodstock festival which was centred on peace, love, music and generally living out the hippy dream of the day, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones organised, what they hoped would be their own mini Woodstock of sorts – a free concert on 6th December 1969 at the Altamont speedway track close to San Francisco –to herald the climax of their US tour.

Altamont would be, reckoned Jagger, “an excuse for everyone to get together, talk to each other, sleep with each other and have a nice day.”

The truth is, Altamont turned out to be everything but all that and instead has long been regarded as the most notorious rock concert in history.

Some say it was ‘the day the 60’s died’ for the chaotically organised event culminated in the stabbing and murder of a young black man, Meredith Hunter, a mere few feet from the spot where Jagger was singing ‘Under My Thumb’, by a group of Hells Angels –the hired ‘security’ for the day whose actions were in response to the sight of Hunter brandishing a handgun.

The Angels were ‘paid’ $500 in beer for their time and to keep control of fans but this was a deal which, by nightfall had turned into a licence to kill.

All the events of Altamont were captured on film and form the main focus of the ‘on the road’ documentary of the Stones tour that was being made at the time by the filmmaker brothers David and Albert Maysles.

The subsequent film was titled ‘Gimme Shelter’ and it follows the Stones from New York to California over a ten day period, capturing the raw sweat and swagger of the world’s greatest rock n’ roll band with exhilarating and explosive concert performances but ending on the sobering note that was the Altamont fiasco and tragedy.

Some 300,000 people turned up to Altamont and from the very outset there was a sense of impending trouble ahead. By mid-afternoon, many in the crowd were already high on acid or alcohol or, a combination of the two.

On his arrival at the venue, someone punches Jagger in the face, later a completely ‘out of it’ naked woman fights her way through to the stage, the Hells Angels are hitting people with pool cues seemingly at random and a man is seen standing onstage apparently in the throes of an acid-induced psychedelic trip.

As the nightmare of Altamont unfolds and the dark mood and violence escalates, Jagger is seen pleading, in vain, from the tiny stage, “Brothers and sisters, everybody be cool….come on!”, he exhorts but his words are not heeded and on this occasion the very real limits of music are starkly exposed.

Perhaps most moving of all is the film’s footage of a sombre Jagger and Charlie Watts watching back the tapes of the day’s events with Jagger claiming he did not see much of the worst violence just as the Meredith Hunter stabbing is replayed.

The Hells Angels later claimed they were made scapegoats and that the Stones’ massive egos were to blame for how Altamont went so horribly wrong.

The film though is not just about the tragedy of Altamont as there’s also some great concert footage showing the Stones at their very best and there is a fabulous scene where the band are listening to a playback of ‘Wild Horses’ at Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama with Keith Richards, in snakeskin boots, lying on the studio floor behind the mixing desk.

‘Gimme Shelter’ is a warts ‘n’ all landmark rock documentary and also a social comment of the time with the filmmakers chronicling, against a backdrop of intoxicating music, a combustible mix of violence, chaos and counterculture that has since come to define the end of the Love Generation.

The DVD film has just received a full restoration of visuals and audio and is handsomely packaged alongside an exclusive 36 page plus booklet containing snapshops and essays detailing the events of Altamont and the end of the Stones US tour.

Fans will further delight in the selection of extra features on the DVD that include an audio commentary by the film’s directors, a 1969 radio broadcast of a 90 minute post Altamont inquest, backstage outtakes of the Stones at Madison Square Garden in New York and trailers.

No self-respecting Stones fan will surely be able to resist this spruced up edition of what is, quite probably, the most enthralling of all rock n’ roll films.