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Four By Four show pays tribute to the oldies

People love music, they love theatre, they love history and they love a night out on the town. Those four elements are being blended with four of the greatest pop vocal groups of the modern age.
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Four By Four will performing at Vanier Hall on Nov. 12.

People love music, they love theatre, they love history and they love a night out on the town.

Those four elements are being blended with four of the greatest pop vocal groups of the modern age.

The musical tribute production team of Michael Chapman, Paul Holmquist and George Solomon squared this circle by writing and choreographing a night of The Beatles, Bee Gees, Beach Boys and Motown all on the same stage.

The show is called Four By Four, a Vegas-style stage event that borrows a little from the hit musical Forever Plaid and a little from the tribute band circuit.

You get some of the rock 'n' roll era's most soulful tunes, a stack of radio favourites, all performed by four star singers who also give the audience a little drama to go with the hit parade.

"Hybrid would be a good word to describe it; it's a unique kind of show," said Taylor Campbell, one of the four co-stars of the production.

"It's a living tribute. We are not playing characters. We are playing ourselves, we are using our real names on stage, but it is scripted as well. We talk about the songs and the legendary acts we are representing, we dress the part for each of the groups having their moment in the show, and it is high-energy and fast-paced as well. You'll get between 45 and 50 songs each night, and every one of them is a universally loved classic."

Campbell and his co-stars have worked with this same production team on other musical stage shows, so the on-stage chemistry is strong, he said. Even though they are an American company, he has personally been to Prince George before for these tours. The most recent visit was in the cast of Oh What A Night: A Musical Tribute To Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons.

"I feel lucky to get to be part of this unique, new kind of show," said Campbell.

"It's a great variety of the best music of the '60s and '70s, and even though I'm 30 years old myself I still grew up with a lot of this music."

He grew up with this music on the radio, live music inside his house, and a culture of mega entertainment all around him.

He was born and raised in Las Vegas. His father sang tenor and played bass for a local group called The Shenandoah Singers that had regular performances around the entertainment capital of the world.

"When I was nine or 10 I was getting into musical theatre and it was a hobby more than anything, but then I got into a performing arts high school, and that led to getting my degree in theatre performance from the University of Evansville where I got a whole liberal arts education not just the musical elements, and that, I think, is really important to have. And then it was getting into auditions and getting a job with this production company that I've been with ever since."

The pathways to the limelight were not as systematic, when the music of Four By Four was first created. The Beatles had no way of predicting that they would end up changing the world with their songs. The artists who found fame with Motown Records could not have known from the outset that stardom was possible because stardom had barely been invented at that time. Campbell said these performers got their quality from a dedication to the craft born out of sheer love for singing and being on stage.

It was so pure and authentic, he explained, that it rang bells of truth that are still ringing with audiences today.

"A lot of people think the most difficult part of doing this show might be learning all the dance moves and singing while out of breath, and it is a factor, but this is a monster of a vocal show. We go through gymnastics out there, vocally," he said.

Even the four performers catch themselves feeling swept up in the moment when they each lay down their overlapping voice parts on a song like Good Vibrations or the smooth machine-gun lyric lines of Stayin' Alive, and it all comes out as one unified rush that is stronger than the four individual parts.

"It can get tough sometimes. It's vocally and physically demanding, but there's an amazing joy and energy for us that comes from being on stage and getting to feel those sensations every night - the sensations of the music and the sensations of the audience. And we're just in between all that. It's a kind of privilege to be there, for us," Campbell said.

The best part of the audience feedback is getting to meet people of all ages, he said.

Some musical theatre is too mature for kids, and some rock 'n' roll shows happen in places where children can't go, but elders to infants can come out to Vanier Hall on

Nov. 12 at 7 p.m.

Tickets are available at CN Centre Box Office or phone/online via Ticketmaster.