With its mixture of ghouls, glits and glams beside the local Latins, street people and punks, Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom seems the perfect place for Queen. It is a dark, wine soaked pit of a place, with gauche decor left over from the good old ballroom days when it was famous, dearie—back when your mama still danced. You can do all your nasties at the Aragon, and most people do. It’s an atmosphere conducive to rape, murder, grisly p.d.’s — and killer rock ‘n’ roll.

To buck the weird vibes, a band has to play louder than the bomb, andj act twice as bad. If some sucker hurls a wine bottle at you, you had better take aim and hurl it back, and do it with style, Jack, or your ass is in hock for the night. Yet, there is still a leftover sense of awe, a respect of sorts, among these circles, when they are faced with a British act, that keeps the crazies at bay just long enough for the band to prove itself. (Perhaps it’s Chicago’s famous “Second City” inferiority complex peeking through.) And so, Queen had at least one big advantage to draw upon. The rest of us should have been so lucky. But we’ll save that part for last. On with the show.

s They didn’t need any advantage. Queen may very well be the most important “new” act of this year, Just in terms of audience enthusiasm. The word is out — their concerts sell out long in advance all over the country. In Chicago on the day of the show two lines of kids, six abreast, began to materialize at noon, for the eight p.m. show. By one o’clock], both lines wound well around the corners blocking traffic and causing a few minor incidents, such as a member of the queue being pushed through a glass door. A good majority of these kids had tickets 'already, but the rest refused to believe that there were none to be had and refused to leave. They had to be sure. The word was out.

Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack album was one reason for the hysteria. It is a breathtaking little departure from the rock and roll norm of the day, and sparkles with unmistakable British wit and invention. There’s plenty of heavy metal, enough to satisfy any boogie man. But what a crafty way to slip a little real professionalism into the boogies! Disguised as Anyband, Queen manages to rise above the fold with ingenious lyrics, inspired vocal explosions, and a buoyancy that will have you smiling before you know’ it. They remind me of days when bands were more daring and turned out ideas, some failures, yes, but fresh ideas instead of patented, “formula” hits to be on the safe side of the top twenty! But that was many naive years ago.

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On stage they can be mesmerizing; though there are some noticeable weak spots, Queen audiences don’t seem to notice. It takes real control to close one’s eyes and own up even for a minute to the fact that there is something missing. The show is thqt exciting — you really want to love jt. I got chills when the lights went out and the audience screamed. Hasn’t been anything like it since JPG&R. Picture it: the stage is black. A pulsating rhythm begins. A voice from the darkness taunts: “Here I stand/ Look around.. . You won’t see me . . .” More ‘pulses . . . “Now I’m here!” the voice calls. There’s a flash of light — for a scintillating second, Freddie Mercury is revealed stage left, draped in white^atin, bathed in white ligl)t. The blackness again. “Now I’m there!” he sings out again..Another flash — he’s on the other side of the stage! Pandemonium! The reviewer drops her pen and surveys the madness. This is it! At last, this may be it ... .

It wasn’t of course. It was stage presence — if you lboked like Mercury or drummer Rodger Taylor you’d have stage presence too — and volume raised to bone splintering level so that everything sounded like thunder and lightning, so powerful that they just had to be special, didn’t they? The audience was certain of it. Nothing I’m about to . say can erase the joy, the madness they unleashed in the crowd.

Onstage Queen really could have been Anyband. All the songs had the obligatory weeping, tweeting guitar, booming drums; even fire and brimstone can get repetitious. In fact, except for the many brilliant moments in each, most of the songs were indistinguishable from each other. The next morning the very beautiful Rodger Taylor explained that the artier moments of the act (“Killer Queen,” “Leroy,” et al) featuring Mercury’s music conservatory piano bits had to be scrapped due to technical problems. Though one must usually be skeptical of such explanations, I am inclined to believe him for purely unprofessional reasons.

I also give him the benefit of the doqbt because of some nPtable if still questionable high points, like “Son As Daughter” when lead guitarist Brian May played harmony with his reverberating riffs. Before I could say “Look ma, no synthesizers!” there seemed to be a throbbing orchestra of axes wailing away. It sounded like at least four guitars all answering each other in perfect harmony.

Mercury adds seductive chatter: “Do you like that? Thank you so much! What would you like to hear now? Really? Alright, we’ll do that, then!” He listened! Came right up to the front of the stage and leanecj down and talked to those monsters like a darling English mum inviting us all to tea. “Please” and “Thank You,” no less, as if there were only the two of us and not 5,000 clamoring neanderthals in a pit. The man could rriake a rock sit up and beg.

For an encore, they did “Hey Big Spender” out of Sweet Charity, complete with playful bumps and grinds a la Sharley MacLaine. And then came “Jailhouse Rock.” Now that was the song of the night. No one since Elvis has ever really done “Jailhouse Rock” like they did it. It was so hot/1 put down my pen and let go (why are encores always better than the whole show?). Well, c’est la vie. Why dig for gripes? I settled back and concluded on paper that they were “very important.” Anfl that, I thpught, was that. Meanwhile, some local morons were punching out CREEM’s photographer. Hello reality! But then again, that too is rock ‘n’ roll, is it not? _'