So, are you worried that these goombas from Jersey might be slowing down? Fuhgeddaboudit. "Jersey Boys" cruised into the Orpheum Theatre on its bed of Four Seasons harmonies and a story tragic and triumphant. Like a stack of old classic records, the show endures and is the best of the 21st-century jukebox musicals.

Hayden Milanes has stepped in as Frankie Valli, the man with an amazing falsetto voice that transformed four street toughs into the premier boy band of the early 1960s. Milanes could not have a better face and smile for the role. He's easy to love and his singing voice — though not completely effortless — can get you very close to that signature Valli sound.

Drew Seeley is the slightly cocky but likable string bean Bob Gaudio — the man perhaps even more responsible than Valli for the group's success. Matthew Dailey is properly difficult to watch as the group's founder and constant bad boy, Tommy DeVito, and Keith Hines is the hulking Nick Massi, the bass voice and musical arranger. Thomas Fiscella deserves a note for playing all the old guys, including mobster Gyp DeCarlo.

Dailey's DeVito mashes through the early history of kids who sang on street corners and got in trouble. The group languished until Gaudio came aboard (recommended by the young Joe Pesci). Gaudio's ear for chord structure, tempo and melody was phenomenal and "Jersey Boys" kicks it into gear with "Sherry," a spot-on rendition of the Seasons' breakout hit. Music director Ben Hartman gets credit for driving a stellar band.

There are 34 song titles in the show. Some get short shrift, but the majors play out at full length. Like the K-Tel commercial would say: You get such hits as "Rag Doll," "Walk Like a Man," "December 1963" and of course "Can't Take My Eyes Off You."

Valli and the Four Seasons often get lost in the British Invasion and the later hard-rocking politics of the 1960s. As the show points out, their music was blue-collar and for the guys and gals hanging out in bowling alleys, looking for a good time — not the cutting-edge protesters. The Seasons (specifically Gaudio and Valli) had to reinvent their sound, like all good entrepreneurs do when business is flagging. They somehow navigated from the 1950s into the next decade and then re-emerged in the 1970s, when everyone was going back to the '50s.

Theirs was a very American story and what the script, written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, aptly illustrates is the epic dimension of these four guys. Valli suffered great tragedies in his life — the loss of a daughter and part of his hearing. DeVito was a train wreck accustomed to jail. Massi quit the band at its 1960s zenith because he was tired of life on the road. Gaudio smoothly leveraged his gift into a musical empire.

That naturally dramatic saga, told bluntly with a few embellishments, helps to explain why "Jersey Boys" remains a cut above the class of jukebox theater. Oh, and there's all that music, too. It helps that you feel at moments as if you are sitting at a Four Seasons gig in 1965. Somehow, that never gets old.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299