The story behind Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons
By Nicolette Pereira, photos by silverlining.com.sg
Who would imagine that a musical could be so upbeat, interesting and yet get you grooving to the beat of the songs? Well, when most people think of musicals, what comes to mind is that almost everything is sung and quite possibly, The Sound of Music might come to mind as well. However, Jersey Boys the musical is nothing like that. It holds your attention and keeps you captivated as the musical unveils the events in Frankie Valli’s life that leads him to ultimately be a hit and how the Four Seasons came about.
The idea of splitting the musical up into seasons starting with the band’s formation in Spring where Tommy DeVito comes out and tells the story of the band, explaining how he started out with the group “The Variety Trio” with his brother Nick DeVito and friend Nick Massi before discovering teenager Frankie Castelluccio and taking him under his wing.
The group then goes through its struggles as they not only face rejection in the music industry but also an identity crisis as well. The band keeps changing its name and sound but to no success. Frankie also changes its surname to Valli. The group looks to form a quartet and they find a perfect fourth for their band in Bob Gaudio who is a singer-songwriter.
They chance upon the name Four Seasons and they decide that it is the best name for their group. They faced several more problems along the route to success both personally as well as financially as Nick leaves the group and Tommy chalks up a huge debt which Frankie insists on settling. Frankie continues to have success due to Bob’s songs, and hits jackpot with “C’mon Marianne” and the nearly-never-released “Can’t take my eyes off you” which Bob fights to get airplay for.
Life gets better as Tommy’s debts get repaid and everything goes smoothly until the occurrence of the death of Frankie’s daughter, Francine. Her death leads to the birth of the song-“Fallen Angel”.
My favourite act has to be the Final one which shows The Four Seasons 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which reunites the original four members on stage for the last time. The musical has a classic ending as each member takes turns to address the audience on their pride of being in the band and what their lives were like after.
The music, the props and the storyline is amazing- Jersey Boys is indeed a Must-Watch!
Jersey Boys is showing at Marina Bay Sands Theatre till the 27th of January 2013.
