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Buddy's back!

Back by popular demand, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story runs Feb. 11 to March 8 at the Chemainus Theatre Festival.

It only took 18 feverish months for Buddy Holly and his rock ‘n’ roll band The Crickets to revolutionize country music. Today, it only takes one inspiring show to relive the icon’s meteoric rise to fame, final legendary performance, and tragic end in 1959.

The Chemainus Theatre Festival is bringing Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story back by popular demand from Feb. 11 to March 8. Deemed “the world’s most successful rock ‘n’ roll musical,” the show was written by Alan Janes, and it stars veteran Buddy actor Zachary Stevenson, a Parksville-raised actor and musician who starred in last year’s production of Buddy at the Chemainus Theatre.

“It’s all rollicking emotion,” show director and choreographer Sara-Jeanne Hosie says in a press release, describing the pace at which audiences relive the musician’s biggest highs and lows. The story touches on Holly’s exciting burst onto the music scene with his “devil’s music,” first taste of fame with No. 1 hit “That’ll Be the Day,” struggle for artistic control, whirlwind romance and marriage, and famous final performance.

A jukebox musical calls for plenty of rousing hits, and Buddy delivers with such popular songs as “Peggy Sue,” “Oh Boy,” “Maybe Baby,” “Not Fade Away,” and the famous music (and faces) of Ritchie Valens’s “La Bamba” and the “Big Bopper” J.P. Richardson’s “Chantilly Lace,” all backed by a live band.

Tickets are available by calling 1-800-565-7738 or online.





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