Here’s a snippet from chapters 17–18 of my 2017 novel, King of Soul:
The year is 1969 (same year I graduated high school). The first scene (in chapter 17)depicts two college students talking about music of the period, particularly what happened at the Altamont pop festival in California. Then, (at the beginning of 18) the scene shifts to symphony concert in which Beethoven’s 9th symphony is performed for listeners in Chicago.
Grace Slick said it was weird up there. Then she kept saying ‘easy’, like telling them to take it easy, and be kind.
The music stopped.
“Paul Kantner got on the mike and said the ‘Angels’ had punched out Marty Balin, and he didn’t appreciate it. Grace said they were fucking up, like the ‘Angels’ were fucking up. Then this Hell’s Angels guy — I guess he was their leader — jumps up on the mike and points at the band, starts talkin’ trash or something, and it was like, the whole thing was going downhill fast.
“That’s probably why the Dead never went on. They left, never played. They must have been freaked out. I mean, everybody must have been freaked out after that. Those Hell’s Angels guys were supposed to be keeping the peace, but what they were doing was more like bullying people around.”
“Sound like they were on a power trip,” said Will.
“Yeah, and they got more obnoxious as the day went on. The worst thing that happened was at the end. After dark, all the vibes got even more weird. The Stones were playing, and there was, like, a constant scuffle going on around the stage. Some people were really tripped-out, freakin out, right next to the band, and Mick Jagger kept yelling at the people right around the stage, telling them to cool it, and calling for ‘those cats to stop beating people up.’ I mean, he even threatened to shut down the whole concert, like, ‘if you people don’t quit punching each other out we’re gonna split.’ He kept saying that over and over. It was like, whiny, ‘we’re gonna split, we’re gonna split, man.’ He was sounding like my little brother whining, when my big brother would pick on him. “We’re gonna split, we’re gonna split. Na nana booboo!”
(turning the page we find) Chapter 18, Movements:
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondem laβt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere!
Ludwig Von Beethoven
While the widening gyre of anarchy was roaring so blatantly through Altamont, another thing altogether was happening in the hub of the heartland, that humongous, meat-packin’ Windy City on western shore of Lake Michigan.
In a concert hall on Michigan Avenue, a mere stone’s throw from the site where, last year, Mayor Daley’s legion of policemen had taught the boomer upstarts a thing or two about how his version of order would be enforced in the city of Chicago, a theater-full of listeners sat expectantly. They were awaiting the arrival of Ludwig Von Beethoven. His scribbled notes upon a 5- lined manuscript would soon provide the roadmap to guide them through an extraordinary experience, an o’erleaping of the bounds of time and space.
At 8:07, as if by clockwork, Conductor Riccardo Ormando entered the hall from the wings, welcomed enthusiastically in a wave of applause. Now the time of his orchestra’s purple mountains’ majesty of preparation would yield forth the fruited plains of actual, musical delight. . .
You can hear Beethoven’s 9th here:
