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CANADIAN CONTEST WINNERS HEAT UP THE AXE ICE PARTY AT QUEBEC’S
ICE HOTEL
BY SEAN PLUMMER PHOTOS COURTESY
OF AXE
"Whip it out when you need it."
Now that’s always a good piece of advice but
the publicist dispensing it didn’t mean it that way. Instead,
she was referring to the wristbands she had just distributed to the
journos riding the bus to Quebec’s Ice Hotel. These guaranteed
us access to the party and, most importantly, the open bar.
What party, you ask? The AXE Ice Party, I answer.
AXE – the male deodorant company that employs cheeky humour and,
shhhh, sex, to help sell its products – likes to reinforce
its brand name every now and then by throwing big parties featuring
cool bands, pretty young women and copious quantities of alcohol. Last
year, AXE helicoptered Access over Miami, Florida’s crocodile-infested
swamps to attend a massive bash with Nelly, Andrew W.K., lots of AXE
girls and some 400 North American contest winners. This year, AXE’s
Canadian branch invited approximately 160 lucky boys and girls to the
AXE Ice Party, a booze-soaked soirée featuring all-Canadian entertainment
like rappers Brass Munk, punks Simple Plan (kind of) and pop star Fefe
Dobson, as well as 26 bilingual "AXE Angels."
The setting was mind-blowing. The Ice Hotel, now in
its fourth year, is just that: an actual hotel made of ice (the walls
are four-foot-thick) located 30 minutes west of Quebec City on the site
of the Station touristique Duchesnay on the shores of Lake St.
Joseph. The temperature constantly hovers around -1†C so guests need
to keep bundled up, but a more romantic destination is hard to fathom.
The hotel, which was open between January 9 and April 4 this year, covers
3000m2 and boasts an art gallery and ice sculptures. Deer pelts cover
the couches but you wouldn’t want to lounge about for too long.
Better to keep moving.
First up tonight is Simple Plan. The Montreal-based
quintet had to cancel their performance at the last minute because of
singer Pierre Bouvier’s nasty throat infection. (Bassist David
Desrosiers and guitarist Jeff Stinco will bust out acoustic guitars
later tonight to soothe the sympathetic crowd with their ballad ‘Perfect’.)
The boys have made it to the party, though, and are conducting interviews
in one of the bedrooms. I read my notes as the cameramen around me fret
about the cold draining their batteries.
One of the harried publicists gives me the go-ahead
and I start firing questions at the shivering Quebecers. So how did
you get this gig?
"Someone called us up and asked if we wanted
to freeze our asses off in Quebec City and we said ‘yes’ because
we love winter," Jeff replies with just a touch of sarcasm.
Says Dave: "You know, what’s kind of cool,
actually ‘cause there’s like 300 winners that I think they’ve
been flown from all over Canada..."
Including you.
"We’re the wieners," Jeff clarifies.
"They’re the winners."
We talk s**t for a few minutes. The band is getting
ready to record their second album, the follow-up to their hit No
Pads No Helmets... Just Balls. Ideally, they’d like to work
with ex-Cars frontman Ric Ocasek (D Generation, Weezer) or Butch Walker,
who just produced the song ‘I Don’t Want To Think About You’
for the soundtrack of the new Scooby Doo movie. In fact, the band has
been animated for the upcoming Scooby season. They’re also part
of this summer’s Warped Tour alongside fellow Canucks Billy Talent
and Lillix.
The recent shake-ups at their record label, Warner
(new CEO/Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. led the take-over), have left the
band stirred but not too shaken. "There’s nothing really we
can control," David says. "We’ll keep doing what we’ve
always been doing and hopefully it won’t affect us too bad. Like
at the beginning of this record, things weren’t going really good.
We were selling two, three records a week or whatever, and we kept touring
and we kept believing in what we always wanted to do and now we get
to do it and hopefully we will be able to keep doing it."
Thank you, gentlemen. Next! I stroll around the hotel.
Everywhere I look camera crews are filming "AXE Angels" decked
out in white and blue ski jackets and fuzzy toques as they gyrate on
stage and stroll through the crowd. There are three bars keeping the
crowd well lubricated. People are enjoying themselves. I hardly notice
the cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cold.
Eventually I make my way back to the art gallery and
see Canada’s newest pop-rock star, Ms. Fefe Dobson, holding court.
Sensing an opportunity, I greet her publicist – "bon soir!"
– and find myself up next. Fefe is our February/March cover girl,
and since we last spoke she’s been selling a lot of records, doing
a ton o’ press and touring Europe with Justin Timberlake. ("He’s
always on point and I really respect that.") When she got the call
from Simple Plan to fill in, she was ready. "I was like ‘of
course’ because I love them and they’re great guys. They’re
friends of mine so it was like ‘anything they need’."
Playing what is essentially a corporate gig doesn’t
bother Dobson, whose song ‘Everything’ is currently storming
the charts. Whatever it takes to get to "the next level" is
fine by her.
"I think it’s fun," she says. "I
used to be nervous about it but now I think it’s so much fun to
play for industry and corporate people because it’s fun to make
them uncomfortable. I like that feeling of making someone uncomfortable.
It’s just awesome."
Really. What does it do for you?
"It just makes me satisfied," she says.
"It just makes me smile. I’m smiling inside."
By contrast, the crowd gathered to watch Dobson thrown
down just before midnight are smiling on the outside. Fefe and her band
(who sport a lot of hair) run through a short set including ‘Take
Me Away’ and the ubiquitous ‘Bye Bye Boyfriend’. Glasses
are hoisted, booties shake and Dobson rocks the captivated crowd.
Mission accomplished.
 Fefe
Dobson with the author: "I like that feeling of making someone
uncomfortable." Hence the ice couch!!
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