Loverboy Fan Club News (Spring 1986)
On December 22nd, Matt, Mike and Scott flew from New York to London to Lapland with Sandy Noll and her sister Pam Lehman--winners of MTV's "Concorde Christmas." Here's Mattie's On The Scene Report.
It was a real experience.
One thing that stands out in my mind was the curvature of the earth at 62 000 feet at Mach Two. You break the sound barrier at Mach 1. It's like a little kick. It only took three hours and 11 minutes to get to London from New York, and then we went Concorde from London to Lapland the next morning. That was another two-and-a-half hours. I didn't realize it was so far.
We saw the sun set and rise within ten minutes. It went down on one side of the plane, and I hauled out my camera, took some shots then put it away, then, all of a sudden . . ."What the hell!? It's coming up on the other side!" It was totally weird!
We landed right in this little town--just 20 000 people. A lot of the people on the plane had never seen snow before, and they were really in awe.
But being from Canada, we kenw all about snow. Young musicians in Western Canada pay their dues by playing the boonies up in Northern Alberta. When we got off the plane, an interviewer says, "so what do you think of the North Pole?" I felt like saying "It looks like Northern Alberta," but I didn't. Then Michael blurts out, "It looks like Northern Alberta!" Scott and I broke up. We all thought the exact same thing.
It was like twilight up there for 4 1/2 hours and then it was pitch black . . .so we had to try and cram everything in as fast as we could until it got dark. We went out on snowmobiles, rode reindeer, we met St. Nick--Santa, except that up there, he's Father Christmas. He was a happening guy. . . He really was! I sat on his knee and everything. It was totally great.
They have this welcoming ritual inside these tepees. Scott and I ended up in one tepee with the two contest winners, and Michael drifted off somewhere else. They get you to kneel down in front of this fire that's burning your eyes; there's a Laplander and a girl dressed up with hats and tassels and there's snow everywhere and you're freezing to death. He starts this little dance and this singing, and he's got this snow and all of a sudden he comes over and goes wham! right in my face and down my shirt and I go "Whoa! What's goin' on here!" but it's part of the ritual... Then you drink the reindeer milk and that's Welcome to Lapland, right?
Then you go outside and kneel in front of this altar with these huge beautiful reindeer antlers and this other guy yakkin' away in Finnish. You both have a little sip of this milk and then he grabs some snow and you go, "Oh no, not the snow again!" and before you can react--BOOM! in the face . . .
Reno got into a big fight. They almost knocked the tepee over 'cuz when the guy nailed him with the snow, he grabbed his own snowball and went after the guy going "What's good for me is good for you!" He's trying to break custom and the guy is yelling in broken English, "You're not supposed to do me, I do you!"
Later on we did some dancing and jammed with the band. The band leader didn't speak English. We're both hollering "Sving! Sving!", and he's boogying along on his accordion. . .Reno came up and sang in my drum mike, ad lib stuff like "Ooh its great to be in Lapland, playing in the snow." We were just having a great time.
We were back in London that evening. There was a huge party at the Hippodrome that night which I elected not to attend. Can you believe it? Matt Frenette of LOVERBOY did not attend the party--thank God because I got everybody out of bed the next morning.
It was a lot of fun but the timing was a little rough. I had eighteen people at my house for Christmas dinner--the family--and when I got home on the 23rd, I'd been through five time zones. My jet lag was unbelievable. I was like a zombie for Christmas morning, staying up the night before trying to wrap presents. I had paper all over me and tape and Merry Christmas. . .
It was really intense, but I had a good time. . .