Review: FRANKIE VALLI Not Quite 'In Concert' with THE FOUR SEASONS at Dr. Phillips Center

 

Frankie Valli introduced his ninth song at Dr. Phillips Center on Sunday night as one of his all-time favorites: a 1964 B-side called "Silence Is Golden."

He might have taken the title a little too much to heart.

It's a golden oldie for sure, and Valli sounded great singing it. Like, really great. ...I dare say impossibly great for an 87-year-old on a live concert stage.

Not just great, but crisp too. And consistent. And loud. He was on-pitch and literally flawless. It sounded just like the record, or at least a record... one that I suspect he recorded in advance of this show.

Alas, the living legend appeared to lip sync through much of the two-hour performance - something of a habit in his recent years, if scores of other concert reviews and deep-dive YouTube investigations are any proof. At the very least, the vocals seemed something other than all-natural and entirely of the moment. (Today's concert technologies allow for all sorts of vocal substitution and pro tool manipulation that you and I might generally perceive as "lip syncing" even if that term doesn't strictly apply.)

Given his age, maybe that's not a surprise. But it is a shame. While Mr. Valli would hardly be music's only act to lean on a backing track - and it is frankly impressive that he's still touring at all - audiences deserve to know what their hard-earned dollars are buying.

Mr. Valli has been publicly insistent that his shows are 100% live, and I take no pleasure in challenging that assertion, but that claim simply doesn't line up with what I saw and heard on Sunday night, and my disappointment was widely shared. Some of the guests around me didn't bother to come back after intermission. Many of those who stayed decided simply to shrug off the charade and have a good time anyway.

That was easy enough to do. The Frankie Valli songbook is second to none. Every single song is a jam, and he "did" them all.

"Grease," "Sherry," "Stay," "Walk Like a Man," "Working My Way Back to You," "Big Girls Don't Cry"... it was all of Jersey Boys and then some, a cavalcade of catchy.

What set it apart from hearing his Greatest Hits on Spotify, of course, was seeing the man himself center stage. Undeniably, there's something to be said for that experience, even if his high notes seemed mostly false-etto.

Concerts are first and foremost about authenticity and connection, and what he lacked in the former, Frankie offset with witty quips and stories all night. Those were live, at least.

So too were the backup singers, apparently, even if their voices were amped up in endless reverb. Valli calls them The Four Seasons, a nod to the 1960s quartet that made him famous, but on this stage, they're more akin to actors than a bona fide band. They harmonize and step-touch and snap in sync, and they're honestly quite good, but it all feels like an audition for a Las Vegas version of Jersey Boys. The producers clearly want to compensate for Mr. Valli's inertia on stage by flanking him with hyperactive dancers, but it has the opposite effect - their momentum only serves to underscore his relative rigidity. It all adds up to way more production than a Frankie Valli concert calls for.

The man is a music titan, and I can't help but wish his handlers and show producers would steer him toward a less showy, more organic presentation - just the man himself in his ungarnished present-day voice, however weathered it may or may not be. No one needs a singer in his fourth season to sound like he's still in first.

But I'll say this for Mr. Valli: many artists of his ilk spend no more than 60 minutes on stage, and that's okay, but Frankie was on his feet for a full two hours (including one 15-minute intermission). Interacting with his adoring fans, his love for his craft shone clear. So too did our love for him.

Even if Mr. Valli's team did serve up something that sounded a little too much like December 1963, I still walked away singing, "Oh what a night!"

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For more information on Frankie Valli's current concert tour, visit his website. For other upcoming concerts at Dr. Phillips Center, visit the DPC box office online.

 

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