The crowd is ready and waiting this Friday, August 10, 2019 evening inside the historic Strand Theater in Lakewood, NJ, for a special concert performance. Produced by James D’Amico, tonight’s production stars “America’s #1 Frankie Valli tribute show,” Let’s Hang On.
The lights dim and D’Amico tells the audience about his favorite charity, Tommy’s House, revealing that a bucket will be passed throughout the auditorium tonight to collect donations.
Tommy’s House was created by D’Amico in 2011 in remembrance of his late brother, Tommy. The charity provides temporary emergency housing, clothing, and referral services for homeless men and women in Passaic County and neighboring Bergen County, NJ.
D’Amico introduces the crowd to the opening act for tonight’s performance — a seven-piece band from Brooklyn entitled Just Us.
The curtain opens and the band launches into a cover version of Blue Suede’s 1972 hit, “Hooked On a Feeling.” With their big sound, Just Us entertains the audience with songs including The Ides of March’s “Vehicle,” John Lennon’s “Starting Over,” Chicago’s “Make Me Smile,” and Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years.” Then, the group really gets the crowd revved up — dancing and clapping along — to their uptempo rendition of Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk.”
Following a short intermission, the lights dim and the members of the Let’s Hang On band — Shelly Gartner on keyboards, Ed Conte on bass, Bob Schubert on drums, and musical director Bill Norman on guitar — put the Jersey audience in a Jersey Boys frame of mind by playing an instrumental overture of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ hits.
Soon, the four Let’s Hang On vocalists — Rich Bresenhan, Diego Cano, Josh Eleazer, and Chris Barletta — take the stage singing the 1963 Four Seasons’ hit, “Walk Like a Man,” dancing in sync and crooning in rich four-part harmony.
Their bright red blazers and white shirts remind the audience of a time of early 60’s innocence.
Rich Bresenhan welcomes the crowd, and the quartet segues into 1966’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” After singing the line, “And each time I do/Just the thought of you/Makes me stop,” the guys invite the audience to join in singing on the follow-up “before I begin” lyric.
The crowd grooves to Let’s Hang On’s performance of the upbeat 1967 tune, “C’mon Marianne.”
On this rhythmic number, audience members clap and sing along as Rich, Diego, Josh, and Chris trade lead vocals before they dance.
Let’s Hang On performs a selection of classic ’60s cover tunes which they say Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons sang in clubs themselves before they became chart-toppers. These hits include The Rays’ “Silhouettes,” Louis Armstrong’s “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” The Penguins’ “Earth Angel,” and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” — the boys walking, strolling, clapping, and sharply turning around in sync on the medley’s instrumental interlude.
Josh Eleazer introduces Frankie Valli’s 1975 solo hit, “My Eyes Adored You,” which starts out as a solo number with Eleazer handling the lead. As the Let’s Hang On singers return to the stage, they add their voices one-by-one until all the vocalists are singing in precise four-part harmony.
Moving on to a trio of classic Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ hits, first, the members of the quartet sing and dance on 1964’s “Dawn,” which features synchronized hand and dance moves.
Then, they segue into 1964’s “Big Man in Town,” where they croon while effortlessly moving and dancing on stage before the audience happily joins in singing and clapping on 1962’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”
On “Marlena” — a 1963 B-side — the Let’s Hang On vocalists side step as they invite the audience to clap along on this rhythmic ditty where tenor Rich Bresenhan sings lead, his falsetto soaring high above the band.
Moving to a rockin’ rendition of 1964’s “Save it For Me,” the group pleads as they alternate singing “Don’t let your love go astray (Save it for me)/Don’t give your sweet kiss away (Save it for me)” on this tuneful pop confection.
After taking a moment to introduce all of the Let’s Hang On musicians, baritone Josh Eleazer has the audience smiling when he shows his age announcing, “Someone recently told me that records used to have a ‘B’ side where you could play both sides of a record.”
After the audience confirms this, Eleazer responds, “That’s true? They’re not just messing with me?”
Going on to introduce an unexpected ‘B’ side hit for Frankie Valli, he and the band perform a tuneful rendition of 1967’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.” As the audience sings along, Josh makes his way down into the crowd and dances with a member of the audience, Judy, while Diego Cano sings lead onstage.
After the crowd happily joins in singing with them, Josh exclaims, “You guys are killing the sing-along part of the show!
Following avid applause, the boys perform lively renditions of The Four Seasons’ 1962 smash “Sherry” and 1975’s “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night),” the crowd enjoying every note.
They follow up with a stunning a cappella interpretation of “Silence is Golden,” their voices perfectly blending as they crescendo, modulate, and harmonize to enthusiastic cheers.
Josh Eleazer announces, “This next song was a #1 hit in 1967 and, again, 40 years later in Europe as a techno-dance song.”
Here, the group launches into a rockin’ version of “Beggin’” — a performance which features a wailin’ Bill Norman guitar solo — before the singers perform 1963’s “Candy Girl,” entertaining the crowd with their precision dance moves.
The guys follow up with The Four Seasons 1964 #1 hit, “Rag Doll.” As feet stamp to the iconic bass drum beat, the quartet sings and dances around with their microphones crooning every single “ooh” and “ah” with gusto.
After a knock-out rendition of The Four Seasons’ ’63 recording, “Stay,” the group performs 1966’s “Working My Way Back to You” before entertaining the audience with their fancy footwork and choreography on their namesake tune, 1963’s “Let’s Hang On.”
The crowd loves it and cheers for this melodic performance.
Revealing, “We travel all over the world, and we did a New Year’s Eve party in Hawaii for Japanese tourists who were very polite,” Josh confesses, “but when they heard this song, they all started leaving.”
The song? The Four Seasons’ 1965 hit, “Bye Bye Baby.”
After warning the crowd, “It’s not the end, so please don’t leave!” the guys sing “Bye Bye Baby,” Diego Cano handling the lead as his colleagues back him up.
Dancing as they sing, the group’s rich vocals fill the theater with sweet harmony.
Let’s Hang On’s rendition of The Four Seasons’ 1964 Top Ten hit, “Ronnie,” gives the audience chills as they hit all the high notes crooning, “I’ll go on living and keep on forgiving/Because/You were my first love.”
After asking the audience, “Who had more fun tonight?” the guys have an impromptu competition between concertgoers on the right and left sides of the auditorium to see which group can contribute more applause.
Bresenhan thanks the audience before the quartet ends their show with 1975’s “Who Loves You” to whistles and cheers from the crowd for Let’s Hang On’s performance.
Following bows and a standing ovation, the quartet performs an encore version of “Opus 17 (Don’t You Worry ‘Bout Me),” where synchronized clapping and dance movements add to the presentation before the singers — along with musical director Bill Norman — exit through the auditorium to greet fans in the Strand lobby.
As happy music lovers make their way out of the venue, we chat with two performers from tonight’s show including singer Josh Eleazer who remarks, “The crowd was awesome tonight,” calling it, “the best we’ve had in Jersey!”
Musical director/guitarist Bill Norman agrees adding, “This was one great audience” adding, “They were super-high energy!”
We also chat with several music lovers who share their opinions of Let’s Hang On’s performance tonight.
States Amy from Jackson, “Let’s Hang On was fantastic — wonderful! Thanks to my parents, I knew all the words and all the harmony parts.”
Explaining, “My parents were big Frankie Valli fans and they taught me to sing the harmony parts when I was a kid,” Amy reveals, “My dad was a singer. He sang a cappella songs like these on street corners back in the day,” before adding, “If it hadn’t been for my parents I wouldn’t know this music, but it was Let’s Hang On’s performance that made me want to sing along!”
Karen from Jackson asserts, “Let’s Hang On was just fabulous! I love their music — they had us dancing in our seats the entire show.”
Mary from Jackson agrees adding, “They were great!” before noting, “and I loved seeing them here at the Strand. I come here for lots of shows — they have all different kinds of performances and they’re always terrific.”
Lastly, we chat with Jackie and Paul from Matawan.
Exclaims Jackie, “Let’s Hang On was just amazing — they were very entertaining, and very funny!”
Paul concurs revealing, “I’ve been a Frankie Valli fan since 1962 and I saw Jersey Boys, too. This performance was much more than I expected. It was more than just a concert — it was really more like a show. The music was spot-on, and the night just flew by.”
Continuing, “It was a feel-good experience — very uplifting,” Paul concludes by exclaiming, “What can I say? It was really fantastic — just exhilarating!”
For more information on Let’s Hang On, please go to frankievallitributeshow.com. To learn more about Tommy’s House, please go to tommyshouse.com. For future James D’Amico Productions events at the Strand Theater — including Bruce Springsteen’s 70th Birthday Bash with ‘Tramps Like Us’ on September 21 and ABBA Revisited and Las Vegas’ Own Bee Gees Gold on October 26 — please go to strand.org
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