Pop Music : Ratt Returns to Its Sunset Strip Roots

How can you tell a secret, unadvertised Whisky appearance by a multiplatinum recording act from the fourth-billed band at a Whisky jam night?

Well, there’s the sold-out sign, for one thing, and the searchlight, and piles of equipment that dwarf the dance floor. When the singer thrusts his mike into the crowd during the choruses, you can also be sure the guys right up by the stage know the words. A whole lot of forlorn-looking 16-year-old girls will be hanging around outside.

Even so, Ratt’s triumphant return to the Whisky on Saturday night--Ratt was a Strip fixture in the early ‘80s, before they became arena-level headliners--showed about a third of the energy you’d expect from a Strip hard-rock band.

Singer Stephen Pearcy, tired and wearing enough eye shadow to turn on a lemur, sleepwalked though the set, screeching the hits and showing all the stage moves of a Leontyne Price recital. When the guitarists lifted their guitars Hendrix-like over their heads, it was with all the joy of a Bulgarian weightlifter clean-and-jerking a quarter-ton. (Even guitarist Robbin Crosby, probably the most elegant soloist in mainstream rock, seemed drained.)

Where such bands as Anthrax, Jane’s Addiction and Guns N’ Roses have been especially intense in warm-up club dates, Ratt may be better at the Forum. This rare small-venue show was a bigger deal to the fans, even the blase Hollywood-insider sort, than it was to the band, and Ratt did little to hide its boredom.