It rained when we left Virginia on Saturday morning and rained for our drive to Durham, North Carolina.
Bill and I were heading off to see Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons!
It was raining when we got there and raining for our walk to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), and again for our drippy walk back to the hotel after the concert, but we didn’t care.
The drive was delightful with virtually no traffic and we never even got lost once! The only things missing were Burma Shave signs. Does anyone remember them?
But the best part of the trek was the “senior citizens happening” in Durham.
We joined 2,698 other devoted old fans all drifting in and out of musical reveries. Bill and I were seated in the “best available” seats (high balcony left!) since “DPAC” was sold out. Many of us climbed interminable heights and stairs to get to our seating. 
It was an impressively huge audience. Our heydays were in the 60’s , 70’s, and 80’s and we waved and swayed and tapped and clapped and hollered as we all forged a mutual link to a never-forgotten musical past.
Frankie Valli is now 80 years old! Imagine? And he sang on August 9th almost non-stop in his characteristically high voice for an hour and 45 minutes. With each announced song we could hear voices yelling, “Yeahhhhh” and “All Righttttt.”
He covered the musical renditions from when he began in 1962 and onward through the generations and we all recognized our earlier selves.
And for just those fleeting moments we were once again who we were then –
fresh and young and dreaming of things to come.
It was over so fast no one wanted to leave. There was a standing ovation with yelling and whistling that went on and on.
Yes, it was a drizzly drive to Durham but happiness was tripping back through time.
Wet? Who cares? We would do it all over again.
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons began filling the air with love and romance way back in the 60s. They scored 29 Top 40 hits, one Top 40 hit under The Four Seasons’ alias ‘The Wonder Who?’, and nine Top 40 hits for Frankie Valli as a solo artist. They marked the seasons with their biggest hits like ”Sherry” (1962), “Big Girls Don’t Cry” (1962), “Walk Like a Man” (1963), “Rag Doll” (1964) and “December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)” (1975). “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, which reached number two in 1967, is one of their best-loved hits. As a solo artist, Frankie Valli released his number one hit — “My Eyes Adored You” (1974) and “Grease” (1978).
Virginia Views 