Depending on who you ask, concertgoers at a Doors concert in Miami on March 1, 1969 saw a lot more of frontman Jim Morrison than expected.
The band's show at the Dinner Key Auditorium - a few hours from Melbourne, Florida, where Morrison grew up - had the odds stacked against it from the start. Nearly twice as many fans showed up to get a glimpse of the band, and their singer arrived late and soon started drinking before the set. Fans already surprised by his new look - namely the long beard that obscured his distinctive features - were further surprised by his onstage antics. (Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors dramatized the incident below.)
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Nobody can agree on what exactly happened. Morrison threatened to expose himself on stage, and manager William Siddons recalled Morrison express concern that he did. An off-duty police officer recalled to the Miami Herald in 2010 that the singer "pulled out his business and started whirling it," while a fan in the front row denied it ever happened in the same article.
What cannot be denied is the six arrest warrants issued against Morrison within a week; he surrendered to police in California and a trial (complete with Morrison taking the stand) ensued the following summer. A jury convicted him of only two misdemeanors - indecent exposure and open profanity - with a six-month jail sentence and a $500 fee. Morrison appealed and went free, but damage had been done: the band only played one more show after the verdict and released L.A. Woman in the spring of 1971, three months before the singer died in Paris at the age of 27.
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