NIAGARA FALLS — Over 40 years removed from their chart-topping album “Metal Health,” 80s rockers Quiet Riot are still all about the music on stage.
As the band played the opening notes to their 1983 song “Run for Cover” at the Third Street Music and Arts Festival on Friday night, bassist Rudy Sarzo and his bandmates took the stage with a purpose.
At the time of the band’s last visit to the Falls in 2022, Sarzo, now 73, had recently returned to the lineup for the first time in nearly 20 years at the request of longtime drummer Frankie Banali shortly before he died from cancer in 2020. He is the only remaining member of the band from its commercially successful period.
“The blueprint of Quiet Riot was already created by (founding guitarist Randy Rhoads). All I did was actually learn from Randy and bring it with me back to Quiet Riot and that’s what I still do,” Sarzo said.
Arguably the band’s most successful song, a cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize” garnered the largest reaction from the hundreds concert goers lining Third Street on Friday night.
When reflecting on Quiet Riot’s history in a Zoom interview with the Gazette last week, Sarzo said he has no qualms that the band’s most well-known hit isn’t an original composition.
‘If we did not record ‘Cum on Feel the Noize,’ there would not have been a record deal, because that was the reason why the producer approached (lead singer Kevin DuBrow),” Sarzo said. “He knew that Kevin of all the singers in LA… was the one to record that song.”
Veteran rock vocalist Jizzy Pearl now takes on the duty of delivering the late DuBrow’s powerful vocals on stage.
Pearl, who is in his second multi-year stint with the band, handled the vintage Quiet Riot material with a sense of confidence. The group also incorporated their own take of the song “Blackout in the Red Room” originally recorded by the Pearl co-founded band Love/Hate.
Guitarist Alex Grossi and drummer Johnny Kelly rounded out the lineup, who similarly handled their parts with reverence to the original recordings.
The band covered significant ground in their recorded history during their 14-song, 70 minute set, which culled heavily from the “Metal Health” album
A little over halfway through the set, Sarzo took to the mic to introduce the song “Thunderbird” and dedicate it in memory of his former bandmates.
“Kevin originally wrote this song for Randy when he left Quiet Riot to join Ozzy Osbourne’s band,” Sarzo said on stage Friday. “We recorded it in tribute to Randy Rhoads after he died. This is dedicated in memory to Randy Rhoads, Kevin DuBrow and Frankie Banali.”
Shortly after the band began to play the song, a steady, drizzling rain began to fall, which was reflective of the overall somber inspiration and mood of the song.
The rain persisted throughout the rest of the band’s set but did little to dampen the audience’s spirit or the band’s fiery performance.
The band continued to tear their way through hard rocking songs including “Party All Night” from 1984’s “Condition Critical” album and the show-closing “Metal Health (Bang Your Head).”