This Saturday marks the return of the great Taps and Taste event to Okemo Mountain Resort, held in the Jackson Gore Courtyard from noon – 6 p.m. This is your opportunity to sample some of Vermont’s favorite local brews and ciders while enjoying live music, fantastic food offerings and over 50 craft beers from the region. Live music will be headlined by Remember Jones, who is one of my favorite bands to see live. I’ll be kicking things off with a DJ set from noon-1, followed by the Chris Pallutto Trio from 1-3 p.m. I go back on at 3 p.m. while Remember Jones sets up for their 2 hour set from 4 – 6 p.m. Okemo’s Adventure Zone will be open throughout the duration of the event. Tickets for Taps and Taste can be purchased at okemo.com. Bring a lawn chair, a blanket but please leave your furry friends at home.
Chris Pallutto Trio plays all over the region from Rutand to Quechee, up north and down south. They play classic rock, and blues. Each member of the band is an excellent musician. Chris has some solo acoustic shows as well, every other Wednesday at the Public House Pub in Quechee and every Thursday at Rivershed in Killington, both at 6 p.m. The Chris P Trio played this event back in 2022. They get rave reviews wherever they play.
Remember Jones puts on a show you do not want to miss. At Taps and Taste, they’ll be an 8-piece band for two hours of non-stop entertainment. You can expect to see a high energy, super soulful front man backed by an entertaining funky soul band. They’ll do bombastic original music, mixed in with stylized funk, soul, and rock covers of many favorites to keep you entertained and dancing. There’s really something for everyone. Remember Jones is both a band and the lead singer’s stage name. Recently called one of the Most Influential Artists for 2024 on the Jersey Shore (alongside Bruce Springsteen, Kevin Smith, and more), and harking back to the presence of some of music history’s most notable entertainers, Asbury Park native Remember Jones is nationally known for his over-the-top theatrical events and funk rock/soul showmanship, with unique, feel-good live performances. R.J. said, “We don’t take many lulls in our set. We cross genres pretty much all the time. It’s under the umbrella of entertainment and personality which brings a really unique show experience. I’ve shared the stage with Springsteen, George Clinton and many more. There’s bits of all the people I’ve performed with, in our show too. We get down in a P-funk way, or I tell a story like Springsteen. We’re going to have a party for sure.”
Remember Jones has been touring a bunch this summer, sometimes playing six shows a week. R.J. said, “We’ve been doing a lot of festival type stuff, which is really cool but really hot. It feels like this is the hottest summer ever. We’re doing a mixed bag of all the stuff from my three albums, which is a lot of fun. We have a lot of new covers we’re doing.”
I love everything about this band, the originals and the covers, so I’m really looking forward to the new ones. What’s great about them is they put on a show. Each member is really good at what they do so there’s a lot to watch. R.J. added, “With a two-hour show you get to see all the musicians. You get a chance to see everyone’s talent, in a longer form. Everybody sings, so in two hours you get a really neat experience of all different types of music.” Besides how great they sound, I like to say their show is a visual masterpiece. There’s a lot to watch with their talent and how colorful they all dress.
Remember Jones was just featured in Rolling Stone Magazine. R.J. said, “It’s mostly about me, and what I do in relation to recreating Amy Winehouse’s music. It’s a really cool feature. It’s highlighted as one of the only people in the world to dedicate a night of music to Amy Winehouse. Being in Rolling Stone as a music and pop culture kid is pretty cool.”
Remember Jones, the man, focused his energy this year on producing with recordings for himself, and other people plus a lot of stage stuff and theater. He recently finished a symphonic run of “Jesus Christ, Superstar” and “Evita”. What impresses me most is his versatility. He has starred as Meatloaf, Freddy Mercury, Jeff Buckley and Amy Winehouse, but in his own way. He is working on a Tom Jones show that will debut in a couple of weeks. It will be with a 17-piece big band. He’s doing Tom Jones’ 1969 “Live in Las Vegas” arrangements, plus some other hits. R.J. said, “As far as I know, I’m the only guy in the world doing a young Tom Jones tribute type thing. It’s cool to have a bunch of young cats, excited to do this music” You can see all those personalities come out on stage. He’s not dressing as these people but he’s acting like them. He added, “I love when the rock and theater thing is a hybrid. I feel my band is sort of that too. It’s fun to do it on a big level.” What’s different about these shows are you can’t call it a tribute act, this is Remember Jones doing Meatloaf, etc. R.J. said, “I kind of do myself. It’s more of a celebration of the music, like a review. It’s really cool. I put it all together. I envision it, I music direct, I star. It’s kind of me behind the scenes, risking it all. For the bands, I pull people from different walks of my life, from different music projects. I try and cast the right people. You need the right Brian May (Lead Guitar Queen).” The Queen show he said is, “a unique interpretation of the music of Queen. We have a horn section, strings, a whole choir and we do it at different theaters here and there.”
That’s what I mean, there’s so much versatility to Remember Jones, he’s musically unique. R.J. said, “I’ve been very fortunate in this area because when we do a show, it’s special and we pack theaters. We also tour around the country in clubs, different outdoor venues and do my original music but also take pieces from all these shows and pull them together. Some of the covers I do are smaller versions of some of the big, crazier things we do on the East Coast.”
One of my favorite things about a Remember Jones show are the cover songs, because they do them in a unique way. Some bands are afraid to do covers. He added, “A lot of people look down on it. I’m the type of artist that falls in the lineage of so many people; Tina, Frank Sinatra. The minute a song was released, they were doing their version of it. I hear something and I like to stylize it, re-envision it, put it in my own way, and allow the audience to hear it as if it’s the first time they’re hearing it. I love that audience and band connection.”
His original music was inspired by other music so he’ll weave his originals in throughout a show. R.J. said, “I have a song ‘Radio Said She Loved Me’ and I was totally inspired by ‘Cult of Personality’ when I wrote it. Now when we do the song live, we kind of hybrid the two. People go nuts for ‘Cult of Personality’ so it allows them to remember my original song even more. They’re all tools to entertain people. I love putting on a show and interacting with the crowd. It’s all about the show. It’s colorful, it’s loud, it’s funky. No two shows are the same. I tell my band no matter what happens, it’s for the audience so just entertain and have a good time. Everybody has a good sense of what to do.”
R.J. has performed with the Everyone Orchestra which is an American improvisational musical project that features a constantly revolving roster of musicians. He said, “I did a bunch of dates with that. Toured with Robert Randolph, Claude from Ween, the guys from moe. and me just singing songs. I’m the only singer when I do it. It’s so fun because I love making stuff up, evoking that audience and having to trust these guys. They can improv musicianship, and I can improv comedy and improv the audience thing. It’s an experience.”
Remember Jones loves entertaining people and ended by saying, “I was born to do this. I love the community aspect of this. I love when people get together and enjoy live music. When they put their minds together and create this spiritual thing. It’s really cool. There’s nothing like it, there’s nothing like live entertainment you don’t find anywhere else. You can’t do it without other people so to have a community for me is really it.”
