Promoted as Jersey Boys if Jersey Boys starred the Four Seasons, the Rascals 15 night residency at the Richard Rodgers Theater "Once Upon A Dream" is more like Beatlemania starring the Beatles, hardly justifying the $80 tab for the cheapest seats in the house.
"Once Upon A Dream" is a 31 song concert, detailing the hugely successful 1960s blue eyed soul and pop band, New Jersey's own the Rascals, career from, mostly 1965 to 1967. The Rascals were formed when keyboardist and songwriter Felix Cavaliere with drummer Danelli and guitarist Gene Cornish added singer and lyricist Eddie Brigati, essentially Joey Dee and The Starliters without Joey Dee.
An immediate hit, unlike the innocents the Rascals claim to be in the taped interviews interspersed throughout the show, this was in effect the Rascals second time to the musical well, and they held out for the right to produce their own material. They signed to Atlantic Records, they produced, Tom Dowd engineered!!!
The first album, The Young Rascals, was mostly covers with one Felix original. The second album Collections had six originals, two by Gene, and the major major breakthrough Groovin' were all Cavaliere/Brigati originals. The fourth and last hit album Once Upon A Dream, was an attempt at psychedelia influenced by Pepper. Then the band fell apart.
Simple enough, right? God forbid writer Steve Van Zandt can impart this informatio clearly and succinctly. Indeed Van Zandt doesn't impart it at all.
None of which REALLY matters because what the show is is a two hour concert and the band is on fire. Starting with "It's Beautiful" and continuing through the penultimate reprise of "People Gotta Be Free", the four piece band augmented with bass, additional keyboards and vocal back up, look their age and then some but perform with a real abandon and sound even better than in 1965. The depth of their catalog is startling, and they take their influences from rockabilly to Motown, from "Slowdown" to "Mickey's Monkey" and transform it while maintaining the highest level of musical power, and at the time, political integrity. Felix's mother suffered through anti-Italian bigotry and the Rascals as a band, fought racism and bigotry, insisting upon only playing segregated shows.
It was a really terrific set, with Eddie banging two tambourines and dancing in the middle of the stage, Gene taking fabulous guitar solos, Dino still a force of nature and Felix the driving force of the entire band: a songwriter's songwriter who should have been even bigger that he was. Played just about in order of release, the set doesn't settle down till a blistering "Slow Down" six songs in, followed by the Smokey cover, and the rest of the set works perfectly, even the three psychedelic songs maintain the audiences attention, bracketed by the Latin American flavored "Sueno" and showstopping "How Can I Be Sure", which garnered Eddie a much deserved standing ovation as his song stood in for a generations confusion and also found a solution to that confusion. This confidence in a future infuses Eddie's lyrics, and is one great reason for their having outlasted their era despite being such a big part of it.
Somewhere in the middle of the concert, the Rascals had the self confidence to follow "Good Lovin'" with "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" with "Groovin'" -an intensely powerful piece of self-confidence and pop masterfulness. I did say IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SET didn't I? While for the audience and maybe even the band, this might be an exercise in nostalgia, there is no working pop band who wouldn't be better for a viewing of such precise and beautiful musicianship. The faces maybe wrinkled, but the mood is eternally youthful, peaceful, loving and on the side of the good guys.
But for all the things you will get by watching "Once Upon A Dream", what you won't get is much of a clue as to what their real story was. Eddie quit the band in 1970 and they could never quite keep it together after that. The show doesn't really explain it at all, they don't explain anything. I wonder what Dino Danelli's family thought of the the sixteen year old drummer living in a dressing room on top of a nightclub? Van Zandt places them in a social history but not in any sort of personal context. Are they married? Divorced? Straight ? Gay? DO they have kids? Who are these four Italian guys?
The Rascals reformed in 1988 without Eddie and then again in 1997 for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, this time with Eddie. In April 2010, they played a charity benefit and Springsteen and Van Zandt joined them on stage. The seeds were placed for this show. And I can't shake the feeling Van Zandt didn't push them hard enough in the interviews. After hearing their life stories the Rascals remain ciphers, unknown. Van Zandt has actors on film portraying the young band to no effect whatsoever. And the question as why they broke up (Felix went on a jazz odyssey after Eddie quit) is blamed on nobody taking care of them. Not even vaguely insightful. Are they blaming Sid Bernstein? Perhaps as a rock star himself, Van Zandt couldn't do what he wouldn't want done to him -have his life, even his life in the band, analyzed and explained.
But like I said, it doesn't really matter. The Rascals played a terrific set as though the years hadn't touched them at all, the singing by Felix and Eddie impeccable, the drummer as strong as Ringo before he left Rory Storm, the keyboards not an echo but a continuation of the 1960s staple. You and me eternally, indeed.
Grade: A