Glass Tiger walks the Walk

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This article was published 18/08/2023 (1101 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been nearly 40 years since Glass Tiger released its first big hit, Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone). The song catapulted the then-unknown quintet from Newmarket, Ont., onto the world stage and saw them collect awards like trading cards and tour the world with some of the biggest names in music.

The band, including original members Alan Frew (vocals), Sam Reid (keyboard) and Al Connelly (guitar), returns to Winnipeg this weekend to headline the Burt Block Party tonight.

As the band members prepare to be inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame next month, Reid says it’ll be an exciting moment for him — not just as a recipient, but as a fan of his fellow inductees.

“There’s 12 bands and I was a fan of most of them growing up — bands that I saw when I was in high school, like Kim Mitchell and Max Webster,” he says. “I’m a massive Max Webster fan. I used to dress like the keyboard player Terry Watkinson, who used to wear a lab coat and welding goggles. I played my first gig (it wasn’t Glass Tiger) with a lab coat and welding goggles because of Terry Watkinson.”

While Reid, the self-professed “pack rat” of the band, no longer has the lab coat or goggles, he does have a healthy collection of mementos — including five Juno Awards and a Grammy nomination — and some wild memories of their rise to fame, starting with that first hit single.

“I remember having about six radios on around the house, so I wouldn’t miss hearing it,” he says. “My mom would yell from the kitchen, ‘It’s on in here.’ We’d have each radio tuned to a different radio station so that we could catch it.”

From performing for 100,000 people on Parliament Hill on Canada Day to working with the likes of Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, Julian Lennon, the Monkeys’ Mickey Dolenz, Journey, the Chieftains and Tina Turner, Reid says he can now look back and appreciate the opportunities they’ve had.

“We realize how special they were. At the time, you’re focused on performing, so you’re not really absorbing who you’re with,” he says. “But boy oh boy, it was like goosebumps watching Tina sing her show from 10 feet away for three months in Europe or Steve Perry opening the show with Oh Sherrie and hearing his vocals as the house lights go out.”

Over the years, the lineup has changed — original drummer Michael Hanson left in 1990 and bassist Wayne Parker departed to open SkyShed Observatories, a company that provides mobile backyard astronomy domes. They’ve also dealt with health scares involving frontman Frew, who survived a stroke in 2015, followed by a serious fall in 2019 in which the lead singer broke his neck in two places just before they were about to set out on a cross-country tour with Corey Hart.

Despite the changes and challenges, Reid says the commitment to music and the fans remains the same. The band is planning to put together a collage of their career, including old photos and video footage taken by Parker, as well as a trip down memory lane for their followers.

“We used to try to respond to fan letters, ’cause at the time we had a snail-mail fan club where people could write in and our manager diligently would give us each of bag of mail. When we were stuck on a tour bus or in an airport for hours, we would try to respond to them,” he recalls. “I think there’s still a bag of mail that’s unopened here somewhere, which would be fun to open and see what those people are up to nowadays.

“And there’s a lot of other material sitting on the sidelines, probably enough for another album, so that’s something that I think we will continue to work on,” Reid says. “Once Alan’s voice is back in full swing, he’ll be up here singing again in the studio, so there there’s definitely new music.”