I’m getting excited about the upcoming Tomato Festival, which begins in four days.
I guess I’m looking forward to it for obvious reasons, like the good food, meeting up with family and friends, and music.
Each year the entertainment lineup is pretty strong and this year is no exception. The Tomato Festival is taking a page out of the Mohegan Sun Casino’s Party on the Patio by featuring some tribute bands.
Party on the Patio gets a great crowd each Thursday evening and they have been very popular over the years.
The Tomato Festival has included a Beatles tribute band, a Billy Joel tribute band, an Eddie Money tribute band and a duo singing Frank Sinatra and Connie Frances music.
There will be other local pop bands appearing, like Sweet Pepper & the Long Hots, Flaxy Morgan, The Sperazza Band, Phyllis Hopkins Trio and Windfall.
Danny Argo is in for a set, as will the Luongo Brothers Band and Popstar Drive.
One of the most popular and talented acts isn’t even a band, but area musicians that collectively make up Tony Wine Cellar Jam Band feature artists like Brett Alexander formerly of The Badlees, the talented Eddie Appnel, violinist Nyke Van Wyk, and the guitar riffs of Rob Husty.
There will be a few surprises up their sleeve and this “band” will be a great closer to the four-day festival Sunday evening.
There’s a lot of anticipation with the return of Billy Kelly, formerly of The Buoys, Jerry-Kelly Band, and Dakota.
We last saw Bill performing many of the hits we’re familiar with over the decades with his long-time partner, Jerry Hludzik, at the Tomato Festival in 2018. Unfortunately, Jerry passed away on Easter Sunday in 2020 due to a form of dementia.
This time around, Bill will be back with long-time musical partner Jennifer Kane. Jennifer has been a Christian singer all of her life and now, because she’s partnered with Kelly for the last 18 years, she will get to see what it’s like to be a rocker.
I conducted a phone interview with Bill at his home in Nashville, Tenn., this past week, and he told me he and Jennifer are excited about playing at the festival.
Jennifer has never been to Greater Pittston and she will have some kind of cultural shock when she gets here. Kelly is very aware how friendly the people of Wyoming Valley could be since he grew up in West Wyoming. Let’s face it, we are huggers and she may not be accustomed to that.
Bill’s music took a turn in a different direction several years ago when he found God and became a born-again Christian. Jennifer came along in Bill’s life and he was back on track with his musical career.
Kane & Kelly have been enjoying success in the Christian Country genre where they have been making waves charting two of their songs nationwide.
A few of their Christian song selections will be played at the festival as he and Jennifer will infuse those hits along with Bill’s hits from years gone by from those mentioned bands he played with.
Jennifer will take over Hludzik’s high harmonies, and according to Bill, who is a wonderful guitarist himself, all songs will be done acoustically.
Since he knows he can never recreate the magical sounds he and Jerry performed, Bill said he wanted to redo the classic songs as if they were being done as demo songs in a raw form on the acoustic guitar.
The hour-plus of music performed by Kane & Kelly will be different than what we’ve been used to all these years, especially since Jerry will not be alongside Bill, but with Jennifer taking Jerry’s singing role, we will still be able to enjoy perfect harmonies.
“I’m so glad Jennifer is excited to play the Tomato Festival, we got right into rehearsing,” Kelly said. “The songs have been reconstructed like “If It Takes All Night” and “Runaway,” but the songs are there, the songs are solid.”
It will be a hectic 24 hours for Kane & Kelly, along with their spouses, Terry and Annie, respectively, will accompany them on the trip. Bill tells me they will fly in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport Saturday afternoon, check in to the hotel, prepare for the performance, do the gig, get back to the hotel and fly out the next morning.
Kane & Kelly will be performing in Nashville the night before they arrive at the Tomato Festival, and the following week, they will be attending the Inspirational Country Music Association (ICMA) awards show where they have two nominations: Vocal Duo/Performance of the Year and New Artist of the Year for 2020.
Bill’s a great guy coming from a great family and I can wish nothing but the best for him. He made Greater Pittston proud, Wyoming Area proud, and West Wyoming proud and it’s been a great ride from seeing him perform at the St. John’s dances to Montage Mountain Pavilion front of 17,000 fans for the final Buoys concert.
We will all be smiling watching Kelly & Kane next Saturday and we will be thinking of Jerry and rest assured, Jerry will be looking down smiling knowing the music he and Bill created is in good hands.
Quote of the week
“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.” – Maya Angelou
Thoughts of the week
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.” – Dr. Seuss
Bumper stick
“Don’t stop until you’re proud.” – Anna Colibri
