LAWTON – If you are ready to “cum on and feel the noize,” you are in luck, rock fans.
Legendary heavy metal band Quiet Riot is performing at the Apache Casino Hotel Events Center on Saturday, May 14, along with special guest Lenny VanHorn.
In 2023, Quiet Riot will be observing it’s 50th anniversary as a band, having formed in 1973 in Los Angeles as the heavy metal craze was really beginning to take off in the U.S. and Europe.
While the band has gone through many changes in names and band members over the years, the core band members in 2022 are: vocalist Jizzy Pearl, guitarist Alex Grossi, Metal Health-era bassist Rudy Sarzo and drummer Johnny Kelly.
Founding member and classically trained Randy Rhoads was a very influential rock and metal guitarist, playing with Ozzy Osbourne, particularly noted for his guitar work on Osbourne’s famous tracks “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley.” However, Rhoads would never reunite with Quiet Riot, as they struck gold in 1983, a year after Rhoads died in a plane crash in Florida while on tour with Osbourne.
That album, Metal Health, was all over radio in 1983, eventually knocking The Police’s monster album Synchronicity off the number one perch in the fall of that year. Mental Health was the number one album in America for a week, before being knocked off that number one spot by Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down.
With exposure in the 1984 film Footloose, along with opening for both ZZ Top and Black Sabbath in the wake of Metal Health’s release and enormous popularity, rock and metal fans across the country got to sing along with hits like the title track, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” (that song and “Cum On Feel The Noize” were both hits in 1973 for English glam-rockers Slade).
Quiet Riot never hit those chart heights again, but maintained a rabid following, which led to continued recording and touring all these years later.
Apache Casino Hotel Event Center manager Lee Bayless said he was excited to have the metal legends playing at the casino, noting that a few years back, Quiet Riot’s Rudy Sarzo actually played the casino when he filled in as a member of The Guess Who.
“There’s a lot of good excitement about the show,” Bayless said. “We have been advertising up in the Oklahoma City area on KOMA (radio) and a billboard near the Amazon warehouse near Newcastle.”
Party buses are also being arranged to take fans to and from the show, with the cost of the ticket.
And while they are preparing for Quiet Riot in a few weeks, more events are scheduled into the summer, including country legends The Oak Ridge Boys performing on Friday, June 3.
Additionally, Warm Springs Casino – a new gaming center – will be opening up just north of Apache, at the Apache wye, noted Bayless. A career fair with on-the-spot interviews for Warm Springs is scheduled from 1-4 p.m., Tuesday, May 3 at the Fort Sill Apache Tribal Complex gymnasium, 43187 U.S. Highway 281, in Apache.
The Apache Casino Hotel Event Center is at 2315 E. Gore Blvd. in Lawton. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and showtime is at 7:30 p.m. Guests must be 21 to enter and be in possession of a government-issued ID with them at all times if they are purchasing alcohol.
Due to the number of people at our concerts and the close proximity of chairs and aisles, backpacks and oversized purses will not be permitted into the event center.
Due to U.S. Copyright laws, recording any part of the concert with professional recording devices of any kind is prohibited and all such devices may be confiscated by security, so we prefer you don’t bring them to the concert, the Apache Casino website states. Cellphone photos may be permitted unless specifically announced otherwise prior to the performance.
For details, go to www.apachecasinohotel.com/event/quiet-riot/ or visit officialquietriot.com.