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Dustin Rabin
Blue Rodeo
Rock
How Blue Rodeo’s 'Hasn't Hit Me Yet' Became a Canadian ‘Rallying Call’ Following Trump's Lake Ontario Order
After the band’s annual show at Toronto’s RBC Amphitheatre, frontman Greg Keelor is speaking about the group’s decision to lead a Lake Ontario singalong with their 1993 hit.
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Blue Rodeo’s “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet” has taken on a new significance.
Over the weekend, the band performed their annual hometown show at Toronto’s RBC Amphitheatre. Notably, that's a venue that sits on Lake Ontario’s waterfront. During their set, the group played the 1993 track, a staple of their concert setlist, and includes the lyric: “Watching the snow fall on this cold December night / And out in the middle of Lake Ontario.”
Before the group started the song, they asked the audience of 16,000 to sing the “Lake Ontario” lyric with “full authority and ownership,” Of course, the crowd delivered, as they confidently screamed the lyric.
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While the song has always been a celebration of the Great Lake, their Saturday night (Aug. 29) performance came at a pertinent time. Recently, U.S. president Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America amid escalading trade tensions.
It’s undoubtedly caused quite the controversy, with many artists including Blue Rodeo showing their support for their home country. This weekend, JoJo and Iron Maiden also spoke out against the Lake Ontario name change during their respective Toronto shows.
In a new interview with The Canadian Press, frontman Greg Keelor, explains how Blue Rodeo wanted to take a stance on the outlandish situation.
Despite wanting to “go off on Trump and just call him a lot of bad names,” Keelor had a better idea: “I knew that the song would do the work,” he explained. “I didn’t have to say much. Just getting to that line was going to blow the roof off the place.” While they performed, a map highlighting the name Lake Ontario took over the screens behind the band, which Keelor says he requested.
Multiple clips of Blue Rodeo’s performance have taken off on social media, with users taking to the comments to express their gratitude for the band’s boldness.
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The response, Keelor says, was unexpected. “We were all just a little shocked at the wave of emotion that came from the audience when they got to that line,” he explained. “It has a different meaning now. I’m very happy for that.”
While Lake Ontario’s name remains on Canadian maps, it has reportedly been changed to Lake America on Google Maps in the U.S.
Keelor says it’s “another aspect of his idiocy” and “so un-Canadian,” but the band will continue to stand up for what’s right. “We’re not pushovers. We dig in.”
Keelor explains that the track was written after he took a walk around Port Hope, Ontario.
“That’s a very powerful body of water,” Keelor says. “[For] most Canadians, it wasn’t really something in your brain, it was just Lake Ontario. But now it’s taken on a significance and it’s a bit of a line in the sand.”
He continues: “The Indigenous people had a relationship with this lake thousands of years before any of us showed up.”
Blue Rodeo will perform a handful of Canadian shows in October and are up to the task of uniting Canadians. “We’re very happy to have that line in that song at this particular moment because it is a little bit of a rallying call,” he told The Canadian Press. “If the song galvanizes a mood or an energy in the country, that is amazing.”
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Since Trump’s presidency, Keelor explained that Blue Rodeo has avoided touring across the border, citing no “appetite to go down there and play.”
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