After initially postponing a concert at the Detroit Opera House in May, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons have cancelled the remainder of the group’s 2026 tour dates, citing health concerns.

“I’m so sorry to disappoint the folks who have purchased tickets to my shows, but I have decided to take the rest of the year off from touring to focus on my health,” Frankie Valli wrote on social media Friday, May 30.

The group, known for such 1960s hits like “Sherry” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” performed in Detroit at the Opera House in downtown as part of the group’s farewell tour. Another date for Detroit was scheduled for later this year on Nov. 22, but the venue’s website no longer links to the event. Seat Geek’s ticket site shows the event.

Ticketmaster shows the June 26 concert at the Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona; the June 28 show at Grove of Anaheim in Anaheim, California; the July 19 show in Uncasville, Connecticut; and the Sept. 19 show at Hershey, Pennsylvania, as canceled.

Ticketmaster still lists several other shows, although some say tickets are not available. The Nov. 22 date does not appear on the Ticketmaster website.

More: Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons announce final Detroit show

Previous performances included stops in Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

“Detroit has always been special to us,” Valli said. “Our first big hit, ‘Sherry,’ broke first in Detroit, and I credit the city for much of our success.”

With a career spanning over 60 years, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons have sold over 100 million records worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Jan. 17, 1990, according to a post on Facebook.

Valli, 92, received a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025.

Their story has been told on Broadway and in the film adaptation of “Jersey Boys.”

“I’m looking forward to getting healthy and seeing you all again soon,” Valli said in his Friday message.

Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jawilliams1@freepress.com.

Before the Violent Femmes became a world-famous band with a multi-platinum record, they started the same way any other group would in Milwaukee: playing wherever they could.

Local clubs weren’t interested in their unique musical style, so they took to playing on sidewalks and street corners until they were first discovered while performing outside of a Pretenders concert at the Oriental Theater in 1981.

They self-funded their first album, which went on to sell more than 7 million copies.

The story of the Violent Femmes’ Milwaukee origins and improbable rise to fame is the subject of a new book in the long-running music book series called “33⅓.” 

Author Nic Brown joined WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” to share the significance of the band’s self-titled debut album and what he learned from interviewing band members and producers.

The following was edited for clarity and brevity.

Rob Ferrett: For people who aren’t familiar with the Violent Femmes, how would you describe their music?

Nic Brown: They occupy this overlapping realm of folk, punk and jazz — which I’d call a Bermuda Triangle for anybody, but they pull it off because their songs are so great. Gordon Gano, the primary singer-songwriter, had this incredible collection of songs when the band formed, and they’re so well put together that they could have worked in any setting, really.

The Violent Femmes themselves had one of the most unique arrangements of instruments possible, and that’s the biggest surprise for people when they see them. A lot of what’s most unusual about them is often invisible on a recording, but they’re a one-of-a-kind band. Their debut record is a one-of-a-kind record. It didn’t sound like anything else then, and it still doesn’t sound like anything else today. 

RF: What were their early public performances like?

NB: They had a hard time getting gigs. They busked, and they had instrumentation that made it easy for them to do that, and that was by design, too. Victor DeLorenzo, the drummer, played standing up with brushes, with just a snare drum and then what he calls a tranceaphone, which is a metal bushel basket placed on top of another drum. Gordon (Gano) would play guitar on the street, usually an acoustic guitar. And then Brian Ritchie would play an acoustic bass guitar, which to most people sounds like stand-up bass, like what you’d see in a jazz trio. It looked more like a mariachi-style bass, and Brian’s point was, he couldn’t haul a stand-up bass around. He didn’t even have a driver’s license. 

They had instruments that were made to play on the street, and the fact that they spent so much time playing on the street is part of the reason the band works so well. There are few performance spaces less forgiving than a street corner in Milwaukee, or anywhere. They honed this act on the street corners so that they could make their songs work in that setting. And because of that, when they finally got into the studio to record their debut album, they were a really well-oiled machine, despite the fact they hadn’t spent much time on actual stages.

RF: What was it like for them to try to get a record deal and record their first album?

NB: It was failure after failure, really. They tried to get a record deal before they went into the studio. They had one very small label out of New York that was interested, but that fell through, so that’s why they eventually recorded it themselves. They had a lot of pressure from some people who did recognize a spark there to do that ’80s rock ‘n’ roll production with the more processed sound and synthesizers, and they had a surprising amount of confidence at the age that they were at to stick with their sound.

Eventually, there was a label called Slash Records, a small punk label in California, and they turned the band down. But two employees at Slash loved this recording so much that they kept playing the cassette in the offices until the owner finally said, “OK, I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to sign this band, not because I want to, but because I’m so sick of hearing my employees playing it every day.” So that’s how they ended up getting their record deal with Slash Records.

They say it’s the worst record deal any band could ever have signed. But they did what they had to, the record came out, and the rest is history, right?

RF: It took four years before the album went gold and then another four years to go platinum. How did it pick up popularity and go viral in the pre-internet era?

NB: I describe it as going viral over eight years via cassette. Young people connected with the songs and shared dubbed cassette tapes. They say this album has sold 7 million copies, and I say you need to ask Maxwell how many blank tapes they sold between 1983 and 1991 and add in about 30 percent of that.

A lot of people don’t know what the album cover looks like. I had a guy recently tell me that the album cover is whatever guy’s handwriting wrote “Violent Femmes” on the blank tape, so it was a real organic word-of-mouth build-up over eight years. 

RF: How unique was Brian Ritchie’s bass playing in what you described as a “lead bass” role in the band?

NB: This is probably the most bass-forward recording in popular music history. Brian Ritchie is an incredible musician, and so this thing happens on these songs where the melodic statements that aren’t happening with Gordon’s vocals are usually made on the bass guitar, and then Brian Ritchie takes long bass solos, unaccompanied by any other instrument.

They sound so natural and great that you actually don’t even think they’re bass solos. Often, if there’s a bass solo happening, that’s when we might skip the song. I’m sorry to say, but that doesn’t apply to Brian Ritchie’s work. He’s the lead.

RF: As a musician yourself, what drew you so enthusiastically into writing this book? 

NB: The book series that it’s part of, “33⅓,” is just a classic series, and guys like me were always dreaming about what record I would pitch to write about. This album had always been in my head as that record. I published a memoir about three years ago about my career as a musician, and in it I mentioned how important this album was. 

One of the members of the Femmes management read that memoir and actually reached out to me about maybe doing a project with them at some point. So this simmering dream of mine to pitch a “33⅓” book rose to the surface, and I thought, I’m gonna go for it. It was sort of a double-dream for me to have a book in the series and to be able to write it with the participation of all three members and the producer. It’s a fan’s dream come true.

June 1, 2026

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with a fund that opponents fear will be used to pay off the president’s political allies.

Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia issued a brief order halting the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, and other high-ranking administration officials from taking any further action to create the fund or make payments from it.

The order came in a lawsuit filed by a former federal prosecutor and a California professor. The plaintiffs are represented by the legal advocacy groups Democracy Forward and Common Cause. The lawsuit is part of a flurry of legal challenges against the fund.

The Justice Department on May 18 announced a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that will make payments to individuals who believe they have been wronged by past administrations. The fund came as part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump over the leaking of his tax return information by a former IRS contractor.

Trump’s settlement agreement provides for the creation of the fund overseen by a board of five members chosen by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal attorney. Trump can fire the members for any reason.

Brinkema, a President Bill Clinton appointee, took no position on the legality of the fund in her order. She wrote that her order is to ensure no money is “irreversibly disbursed” while the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order is pending.

She also set a hearing for June 12 — likely ensuring the fund will remain blocked for at least the next two weeks.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Andrew Floyd, a former federal Jan. 6 case prosecutor who was fired by the DOJ in June 2025, and Joseph Caravello, a California university professor who was charged with felony assault on a federal officer after protesting an immigration raid last summer. A jury acquitted Caravello in April.

The nine-count lawsuit alleges in part the fund violates the plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights, and violates the authority of Congress.

“Since its inception, this fund has been on a collision course with the United States Constitution,” their complaint says.

Trump has written on social media that the fund will help those “who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration” receive justice.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..