PITTSBURGH >> It’s gotten to where concerts are canceled, officially, for only two reasons: the undisclosed “illness” and the euphemistic “scheduling conflict,” which means they either didn’t sell enough tickets or the artist found something better to do.

Back in the day, the cards were all on the table. If the show didn’t sell, they just said “poor sales.”

This month in 1969, everyone knew that The Doors concert was canceled because Jim Morrison may or may not have dropped his drawers.

On March 22 of that year, The Doors were set to make their Pittsburgh debut at the Civic Arena. It was long awaited because in January 1967 the LA psych-rock band released one of the greatest debut albums of all time, highlighted by the mind-blowing, chart-topping hit, “Light My Fire.”

The ‘67 tour cycle seemingly took them everywhere but Pittsburgh, including Canton and Cleveland, three days before they played “The Ed Sullivan Show,” from which they were subsequently banned when Jim Morrison broke the agreement to not sing the word “higher.”

That fall ‘67 East Coast swing ended with the infamous New Haven concert, where, after mocking the police about a backstage incident, Morrison was dragged from the stage and charged with inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity.

On March 1, at a grossly overheated airplane hangar in Miami, Morrison showed up drunk and belligerent and verbally sparred with the crowd, uttering things like “You’re all a bunch of slaves!”

Little by little, things got a little out of control. The singer grabbed a cop’s hat and threw it into a crowd. Someone jumped on stage and doused Morrison with champagne. He ripped his shirt off and dared the crowd with “Let’s see a little skin. Let’s get naked.” Reportedly, there were takers.

Did Morrison himself “get naked”? No, his band members said. He may have unzipped and stuck his hand down there, but that was it. There were no cellphones. The police claimed that he exposed himself, shouted obscenities and also simulated oral sex on guitarist Robby Krieger. They issued a warrant for his arrest four days later.

In response, Jacksonville, Philadelphia and Toronto all canceled, and so did Pittsburgh, under pressure from Mayor Joseph Barr himself.

“I had the exclusivity on rock shows there at the arena,” promoter Pat DiCesare told the Post-Gazette on Monday, “and I didn’t want to cause any aggravation, so I was willing to forget The Doors even though I was convinced it was gonna sell out, if it was going to cause trouble.”

Rallies for Decency

Three weeks after the Miami concert, and one day after the canceled Pittsburgh concert, something almost unbelievable happened. Thirty thousand people packed into the Orange Bowl for a teenage Rally for Decency, some waving signs saying, “Down With Obscenity.”

A battle was on for the hearts and minds of American youth who had gone through the Summer of Love of 1967 and were on the way to Woodstock.

The Orange Bowl rally, coordinated by 17-year-old high school football player Mike Levesque, sprung from a Catholic youth group meeting two days after the Miami concert.

“I believe this kind of movement will snowball across the country and perhaps around the world,” Gleason said, and the comedic superstar was partially right.

Levesque received a letter of appreciation from President Richard Nixon and calls from radio stations and organizers in other cities to stage their own rallies, which took place in Birmingham, Ala., Minneapolis, Minn., Austin, Texas, and other cities.

Baltimore controller Hyman A. Pressman declared this Clean Teens movement to be “the best thing that has happened in this country in a long time.”

So, Baltimore got in on the action, at Memorial Stadium in April, and ... it didn’t go so well.

It did draw 45,000, but the next-day headline read, “Decency Rally Ends in Baltimore Brawl.”

At least 200 people were stabbed, beaten or pelted with rocks. Instead, the crowd got a bunch of boring speakers and some second-rate local bands on a bad sound system.

“There were too many hoodlums in the stands,” a city councilman explained, adding, “There was too much emphasis on the rock ‘n’ roll music, and not enough on decency.”

A Detroit rally was another bust. They expected 15,000 at Cobo Hall and got 2,000, for a couple unnamed rock groups and The Irish Rovers.

The UPI reporter interviewed a 10th-grader, who admitted she was there to meet boys.

“Decency? Well, it’s like love your parents and love the flag,” she said. “I don’t want to be told stuff like that.”

Pittsburgh had two decency rallies. In May, the folk group New World Singers of Youth for Christ International drew about 100 people to Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland. In July, Steve Gilbreath, a member of Up With People from Alabama who was inspired by the Miami rally, held one at the Syria Mosque with the Good News Singers. About 800 people watched them do folk and religious songs and also cover The Lettermen.