{"id":955,"date":"2019-02-10T12:53:31","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T17:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=955"},"modified":"2019-02-10T12:53:31","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T17:53:31","slug":"seeing-the-original-jersey-boy-frankie-valli-live-oh-what-a-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/seeing-the-original-jersey-boy-frankie-valli-live-oh-what-a-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing the original Jersey Boy Frankie Valli live: Oh, what a night!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Frankie<\/a>

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons performed Saturday, Feb. 9, 2019, at the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, N.J.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

While sitting around killing time, people watching and shooting the breeze before the Frankie Valli concert Saturday night, Feb. 9, at the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, it occurred to me that we were about to witness a quintessential New Jersey event.<\/p>\n

Here was the original Jersey Boy performing at a casino in the state\u2019s premiere entertainment town, a town in which he\u2019s played for nearly 60 years. It\u2019s as classic a scene as the Rat Pack playing the Sands in Las Vegas in the early 1960s. If you\u2019re gonna see Frankie Valli live \u2014 especially for the first time like we were \u2014 what better place than at a casino in Atlantic City, N.J.?<\/p>\n

So I said to The Blonde Accountant, \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t the cast of The Sopranos show up tonight to support one of their own?\u201d Given that the iconic HBO series about a New Jersey crime family has now joined the ranks of all things Jersey \u2014 Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Van Zandt (Sopranos character Silvio Dante), Jon Bon Jovi \u2014 why wouldn\u2019t there be the possibility of seeing some famous faces in the audience for this show?<\/p>\n

That made sense to me. Valli appeared in seasons five and six of The Sopranos as the character Rusty Millio, a capo in the Lupertazzi crime family who is referred to in the series as \u201cThe Mayor of Munchkinland\u201d because of his short stature. Valli\u2019s character is eventually whacked in his own driveway in a hit contracted by Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini).<\/p>\n

\"Frankie<\/a>

Frankie Valli drew a packed house to the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Now at 84 years old, Frankie is still worth seeing. His show has a chill-inducing, historical video lead-in of the original group before he and the modern version of The Four Seasons \u2014 who by the way are simply fabulous \u2014 and the killer nine-piece band take command of the stage and the audience.<\/p>\n

About two-thirds of the way through the show, Frankie introduced the members of the band, after which he said, \u201cThere\u2019s one other person in the audience I\u2019d like to acknowledge . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

Wait. What? Ah, somebody is here. Who is it?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to introduce you to my fellow Sopranos cast member, Tony Sirico,\u201d said Frankie. And right there center stage in the front row, there was Paul \u201cPaulie Walnuts\u201d Gualtieri, dressed impeccably (like his character) in a sharp suit. He stepped up to the edge of the stage and shook Frankie\u2019s hand, turned and briefly acknowledged the cheers from the crowd, and sat back down.<\/p>\n

Ha! It\u2019s Paulie Walnuts! The soldato, capo regime and underboss of the fictional New Jersey DiMeo crime family, a stone cold gangster and one of Tony Soprano\u2019s closest friends.<\/p>\n

It was a perfect segue into Frankie\u2019s next comment: \u201cHow many of you have seen Jersey Boys?\u201d As was to be expected from a Jersey-centric crowd, there was a big applause. \u201cHow many of you have seen Jersey Boys more than once?\u201d Another big response. \u201cHow many of you have never seen Jersey Boys?\u201d A handful of claps from the upper regions of the venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet their names and numbers and give them to Paulie Walnuts,\u201d said Frankie, which of course drew the biggest applause of the entire bit.<\/p>\n

I love it when show business and real life interact like that.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>

One of Frankie Valli’s stage costumes that he wore during the 1980s, on display at the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

The original Four Seasons \u2014 Bob Gaudio, who wrote many of the Four Seasons greatest hits, including \u201cSherry,\u201d \u201cBig Girls Don\u2019t Cry,\u201d \u201cWalk Like A Man\u201d and \u201cRag Doll\u201d \u2014 Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi (who died in 2000), were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.<\/p>\n

One of my concerns before the show was that the Jersey Boys Broadway production might be better than the real thing.\u00a0But seeing Jersey Boys and seeing Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons is seeing two different shows. There\u2019s more storytelling in the Broadway production and more music in Frankie\u2019s show. Both are very good and very entertaining in their own right.<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to this show, I had watched several YouTube videos of recent Frankie performances, mostly to see if he still had the voice, the one that could hit those trademark high falsetto notes. I\u2019ve seen artists in the past whose voices didn\u2019t stand the test of time \u2014 some of my favorites of all-time like Brian Wilson, Art Garfunkel and John Sebastian. It does not bother me that they don\u2019t sound the way they did on the records from the 1960s and 1970s. They\u2019ve made the necessary adjustments the best they can and I just appreciate the opportunity to see them perform.<\/p>\n

But many of the comments on those YouTube videos, as well as some comments from friends that I received privately, suggested that Frankie has been lip-syncing at his live shows for a while now. I can\u2019t speak authoritatively on that. My seats for this show were too far back to be able to tell, and at those times I was watching the big video screens, I could not discern if it was live or if it was Memorex. Frankie definitely had a live mic, but I am unfamiliar with the technology that allows the seamless blending of live and pre-recorded sound into a show that for all intents and purposes looks and sounds live.<\/p>\n

I will say this, though: If Frankie was lip-syncing, he\u2019s very good at it.<\/p>\n

So the quintessential New Jersey event ended up being exactly that. It was pure Jersey and it was a kick to experience. Go see the show if you get the chance.<\/p>\n

Like Frankie says, you\u2019ll come away thinking the exact same thing as I did: Oh, what a night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While sitting around killing time, people watching and shooting the breeze before the Frankie Valli concert Saturday night, Feb. 9, at the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, it occurred to me that we were about to witness a quintessential New Jersey event. Here was the original Jersey Boy performing at a casino in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99,115,268],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-frankie-valli","tag-hard-rock-casino","tag-the-four-seasons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}