On March 1, 1969, The Doors performed for 10,000 people squeezed into the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Florida. On stage, Jim Morrison, along with guitarist Robby Krieger, drummer John Densmore, and keyboardist Ray Manzarek, performed their typical, hypnotic set, despite their frontman’s intoxication.
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Opening on “Break on Through (to the Other Side),” the band also performed their cover of the Willie Dixon-penned Howlin’ Wolf song “Back Door Man,” filled with Morrison’s drunken diatribes in between. The set also included “Five to One,” and bits and pieces Morrison sang of other songs. The band barely made it through “Touch Me” and Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” and the remainder of their set list, which included “Love Me Two Times” and “When the Music’s Over.”
“Light My Fire”
Morrison was known for his on-stage antics like refusing to sing “Light My Fire,” a song he had begun to despise, or breaking out into a poetry reading. An hour into the Miami set, the show began to shift after the band began playing “Light My Fire.” Prior to that, Morrison was ignoring the crowd’s screaming requests to hear the song. They barely got through it before all chaos ensued. Because of the disorder of events that unraveled, there are many conflicting accounts of what exactly happened that night at the Dinner Key Auditorium.
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A detailed 1969 report in Rolling Stone stated that about an hour into the band’s set, it appeared like Morrison was trying to incite a riot within the crowd. “Let’s have a good time,” he said. “Let’s have a revolution. Everybody come up onstage.”
As the stage began to fill up, he continued ranting obscenities, according to the owner of the dance hall Thee Image, and promoter for The Doors concert, Ken Collier. “Do you wanna touch me?” Morrison said, according to Collier. “Come up and touch me.”
Double Exposure
At one point, champagne was poured over his head and pulled off his shirt, and the stage had about 60 people on it. Morrison was also gyrating around the stage as if masturbating, according to Collier.
“Do you wanna see my cock?” Morrison said, according to Collier, who then grabbed the microphone from the singer and gave the peace sign to the audience. At this point, there were some in attendance who said Morrison pulled out his penis. In the Rolling Stone report, Collier said he never saw Morrison expose himself.
The Doors’ road manager Vince Treanor, along with members of the band also insisted that Morrison did not expose himself on stage that night.
“He didn’t do it,” said Densmore in 2010. “I was there. If Jim had revealed the golden shaft, I would have known. There were hundreds of photographs taken, tons of cops, and no evidence. Yeah, Jim was a drunk and a sensational, crazy guy, but he also was a great artist and I want him to be remembered for the art as well as the craziness.”
Manzarek, who died in 2013, also backed Morrison. “It never actually happened,” he said in 2010. “It was mass hypnosis.”
The Show’s Over
During Morrison’s tirade, the band continued playing, while the singer wrestled for the mic, and shoving matches continued among the crowd on stage. “Keep calm, sit down, keep quiet, peace, this can’t happen in Miami,” said Collier trying to calm the crowd. “We’re not going to have this in Miami. Sit down.”
Collier’s colleague Larry Pizzi, who held a black belt in karate, grabbed the inebriated singer and flipped Morrison off the stage when he became physical with him. Soon after, Collier said he pulled the plug on the band and cut off the sound. The show was over.
Along with the many mixed accounts of the chaotic evening, even the date of the actual show was misreported. Rolling Stone originally reported it as March 2, while the Miami Herald reported it as March 1.
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Arrests and Pardons
After the show, there were six warrants for Morrison’s arrest for “lewd and lascivious behavior in public by exposing his private parts and by simulating masturbation and oral copulation,” according to Rolling Stone. This was added on to his previous arrests, including one in 1963 for disturbing the peace during a college football game, and again in 1966 for sexual assault; those charges were later dropped.
Morrison was also the first rock star to get arrested on stage during a concert at the New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut in 1967. Prior to the band’s show, police found Morrison in the backstage shower area with a woman. When asked to leave, Morrison said “Eat it” to the officers who maced him. Though the show was delayed, once on stage, Morrison spurted out obscenities about the incident to the audience, which led to his arrest for public obscenity and indecency.
Although he was fined and sentenced to six months in prison for his indecency charges, Morrison remained free on a $50,000 bond.
In 2010, a Florida Clemency Board voted unanimously to pardon Morrison for his 1969 indecency charges.
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
