No between song banter, band intros or thank-you’s, just 15 minutes of hot, prime Ratt & Roll.
The Sunset Strip rockers absolutely crush their short set in the clip below, said to be from a March 18, 1984 show supporting Ozzy Osbourne and Motley Crue in Salt Lake City. The video is one of many vintage Ratt performances that can be found on Rattmaster86’s YouTube channel.
In the clip, Ratt opens with “You Think You’re Tough,” the street-life banger off the band’s self-titled 1983 EP. This live version has extra fur on it, with frontman Stephen Pearcy’s lusty bay in fine form. Robbin Crosby is in guitar Adonis mode, peeling off a chemtrail-hued solo on his Flying V. During the pre-choruses, Ratt bassist Juan Croucier steps to the mic to deliver a melodic vocal.
Next, the band slashes through “You’re In Trouble,” off Ratt’s debut LP Out of the Cellar, punctuated by quicksilver stuff by guitarist Warren DeMartini. Throughout the four-song performance, Bobby Blotzer’s drum grooves prowl and jab. On the set’s penultimate song “The Morning After,” Crosby and DeMartini do intertwining solos that evoke a snake eating its own tail.
Ratt then crashes straight into set closer “Round and Round.” At the sound of that hit’s sugar-metal crunch, the crowd at the Salt Palace — then-home of the NBA’s Utah Jazz and many ’80s arena rock shows — instantly goes wild. Ratt rocks every face there for another four minutes, a blaze of hooks, hedonism and man-skank bangs.
Reportedly, the band had been added to this stop of the snorting-ants-infamous Ozzy/Motley tour later chronicled in Crue memoir The Dirt and Netflix film adaptation (video of Osbourne’s set has long been online too). Tickets for the concert were around $12. Hard to imagine anyone left the arena that night not feeling they got their money’s worth.
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