The Jersey boys

Last week I visited the musical the Jersey Boys in the Beatrix theatre in Utrecht. The musical is about the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, a popband from New Jersey in the sixties. The Four Seasons became famous after their worldwide numer one hit 'Sherry'.

 

The musical begins with Tommy DeVito. He states that boys from New Jersey can become three things: a soldier, a criminal or a popstar. He has chosen to be a criminal and a popstar, but his music career isn't going well at all. The moment he discovers Frankie Valli, his hope in his life as a popstar returns. The three of them, Frankie Valli, Tom DeVito and Nick Massi, form the Four Lovers. In 1960 Bob Gaudio joins the band and their name changes into the Four Seasons. Before he joined the Four Seasons, Bob Gaudio had had a huge hit with 'Short Shorts' already. He had written this song himself and because of that the following songs of the Four Seasons were written by him. Eventually the Four Seasons have had a lot of hits and the became very famous, some songs of them are 'Sherry', 'Big girls don't cry' and 'December 1963'. The group broke up in 1967 because of huge debts and Frankie Valli started his solo career. His career started very well with his song 'Can't take my eyes off you'.

 

In the musical the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is told by all four members of the band. Because of that you hear the story from watch and everyone's point of view and you get to know their reciprocal relationships very well.

I believe the Jersey boys is a great feelgood musical. The story isn't very difficult to understand and because of that you can watch it in a relaxed way. Because of the easy story there's a lot of room for the Jersey boys' music. Before the musical I didn't know their music well but however it appealed a lot to me. The musical is well thought and that can be seen. For example the setting of the story. The musical is set in the sixties and because of that the actors wore flashy costumes. At each performance the Four Seasons wore different costumes, all the costumes were very colourful and shiny.  Besides that, I think it was very nice that at every start of a new period in the career of the Four Seasons, billboards with pictures in popart came down. Furthermore was each new period in their career indicated as a season, there was summer, autumn etc.

I would definetly recommend this musical, but not because of the story. The musical is actually about the music of the Four Seasons and that has the lead. The script has been written around the songs. I believe the musical the Jersey boys is great to visit, it's actually one big sing-a-long and the musical goes international as well!

 

Sergeant Peppper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

 
 

The Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is one of the best selled albums of the British band The Beatles. The album contains thirteen songs including Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles are very famous of course, but I don't want to talk about them. I'm going to talk about the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and especially about its cover.

 

The cover of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album is designed by the British artist Peter Blake. Sir Peter Thomas Blake was born on 25 June 1932 in Dartford in Kent. He has studied on the Royal College of Art in London and after that he was included in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. His first solo exhibition was in 1960 and in 1961 he immediately won the John Moores junior award for his Self Portrait with Badges. Peter Blake's best known work is The First Real Target, made in 1961. All his art is belongs to the pop art.

The Sgt. Pepper's Loney Hearts Club Band's album cover is famous and has won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover in 1967. The cover features a colourful collage with around sixty celebrities from all over the world. The celebrities aren't painted but they are photographed, each person in his own style. The Beatles stand behind a drum skin, on which the name of the album is painted, and they wear coloured military-style outfits. John Lennon in lime, Ringo Starr in pink, Paul McCartney in blue and George Harrison in orange. Besides the real Beatles, there are also four waxworks of them on the cover. These can be found on the left side of the real ones.

 

The other characters on the album cover are inter alia musicians, writers and film stars. Amongst them are also some Indian gurus at George Harrison's request. 

 

This cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is actually not the original one. Because some people from the original cover are cancelled from this version. One of them was Leo Gorcey. He was remover from the album cover, when a fee of $400 had been requested for the use of hise likeness. The Indian politician Gandhi was also removed, because his appearence would lead to lower sales of the album in India. Another removed person is Jesus Christ, because John Lennon requested so. Other removed characters are Adolf Hitler and Germán Valdés.

 

At first sight you think you just see the Beatles in front of a bunch of people. But later on, when you take a closer look, you see that that bunch of people contains all sort of famous characters. This may lead to confusion and because of that confusion people start to think about the ideas of the photographed characters on the album cover.

 

A lot of parodies have been made of this Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. These are just a few examples: