New Haven Arena — Jim Morrison Arrested Onstage (1967)

On the night of December 9, 1967, Jim Morrison became the first rock musician ever to be arrested while performing onstage, at the New Haven Arena on Grove Street in New Haven, Connecticut. The incident began backstage, when a police officer hired for security — not recognising the Doors' lead singer — found Morrison in a shower stall with a female fan and ordered them to move along. When Morrison reportedly told the officer to "eat it," the cop discharged a can of Mace directly into his face.

Rather than letting the humiliation pass, Morrison took to the stage and recounted the entire confrontation to the packed crowd, describing the officer as "a little blue man in a little blue hat" and, by some accounts, "a little blue pig." New Haven police moved swiftly: officers walked onto the stage mid-performance and hauled Morrison off in front of roughly 2,000 fans. He was charged with breach of peace, indecent and immoral exhibition, and resisting arrest. The charges were later dropped, but the event became one of the defining moments of rock's fraught relationship with authority.

The New Haven Arena itself was demolished in 1972, and the site on Grove Street was eventually absorbed into the expanding campus of Southern Connecticut State University. Today there is no monument to the night rock music's most theatrical confrontation with the law played out on this corner, but the address remains a quiet pilgrimage point for Doors devotees who know what happened here.