Last week one of the most iconic bands of any era had its tour visit Chicago – and it never should have. I hope they don’t come back again. Ever.

Queen’s performance at the All-State Arena March 23 – with front row tickets going for as high as $3,600 through online brokers – marks the lowest point of any reunion tour in recent memory. The abomination is a combination of the fact Queen was greater than all the other acts currently holding Nostolgia Court in arenas and county fairs across the nation combined, and that this isn’t the Londoners’ first attempt at a fill-in-the-blank front man. It’s just the worst, and should be the last.

Bad Company vocalist Paul Rogers has helmed this version of the legendary quartet since early 2005 and it’s only a matter of time before his new mates realize they in fact are the ones in bad company. Granted Rogers isn’t expected to upstage the memory of the late Freddie Mercury, whose combination of showmanship and iconic vocal range made him rock’n’roll’s ultimate front man. But Rogers should be held to a higher standard than the countless bar stage cover bands struggling to reach Mercury’s notes and trying too hard to mimic his presence.

Even Brian May, arguably history’s greatest guitarist, seems bored with this line up. His fingers still dart around his axe with razor sharp subtlety , but his gaze has moved from intense to uninterested. Who knows, maybe he’s counting down the notes until he can get back to the tour bus and pop in the VHS of the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. Not because he longs for the days of Mercury, but just the days of a good Mercury stand-in.

At least then, less than six months after Mercury died of AIDS, the remaining three felt like a band. It wasn’t an attempt at a re-birth, but instead, an attempt at what should have been a final goodbye.

What a hell of a goodbye it would have been. Performing before a sold-out Wembley Stadium, guest vocalists such as David Bowie, Elton John, Roger Daltry, Robert Plant and the night’s most impressive substitute, George Michael, lead others through a two-part concert that concluded with a rendition of the Sex Pistol’s “God Save the Queen.”

And the night could have saved Queen, or its legacy at any rate, if that had been it. But recent years have proved otherwise. In an ironic twist, the more the group tours and the longer it refuses to bask in it’s diminishing reputation, the more prophetic The Smiths’ 1986 album title becomes – “The Queen is Dead.”

Luckily, The Smiths’ reclusively neurotic vocalist Morrissey had the foresight to warn everyone and has hindsight to know that’s how it should be. The 47-year-old Manchester native knows good things should come to, and stay at, an end.

Recently he revealed at South by South West that he was offered $5 million to reunite his group at last year’s Coachella festival. Thankfully, he turned it down. Morrissey and his former guitarist Johnny Marr wanted to end the band in the late 1980s for a reason, and the two realize still their differences are far from reconciled. No amount of incentives – as Morrissey stated, “money doesn’t come into it” – can make two artists perform together honestly.

John Lennon voiced that when he responded, “When are you going back to high school” when asked on the street about when he planned to work again with Paul McCartney.

Like an athlete that retires in his or her prime, performers that know when to hang it up disappear with images of grace, not images of a Washington Wizards’ Michael Jordan bopping his head to a half-time rendition of “We Are The Champions.”

Unfortunately, now, I’m not sure which is the worst competent of that scenario.

Daily Herald BEEP, March 30, 2006