The co-founder of a legendary Canadian band that urged their fans to rally against U.S. President Donald Trump over his latest geographical demand has revealed their motivation.
Blue Rodeo, members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, performed at Toronto’s RBC Amphitheater on Saturday. The iconic venue is located directly on the Lake Ontario waterfront, and the band has now played at the venue 26 times since it opened in 1995.
Trump, 80, has insisted the lake, which spans the U.S. Canada border, be renamed “Lake America.”
Blue Rodeo’s 1993 fan favorite, “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet,” features the lyrics, “Watching the snow fall on this cold December night, and out in the middle of Lake Ontario, the same snow is falling on the deep silent water.”
Before performing the song on Saturday, lead vocalist Greg Keelor noted that the name of the lake has “become a little controversial,” before telling fans “I would just like you to sing tonight with full authority and ownership.”
He added, “We’ll sing this one for the shining waters that have been there long before any of us were ever here.”
The 16,000-strong audience could be heard chanting “Lake Ontario” during the song, while screens behind the band proudly displayed a map of the area, with its original name. The band has now shared the full song, along with Keelor’s introduction, on its social media accounts.
Keelor’s bandmate, co-founder and co-vocalist Jim Cuddy, told the audience after the singalong, “that was chilling, folks. We are who we are, right? F— ‘em.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Cuddy, 70, spelled out why the protest moment against Trump was so important to them.
“Up here in Canada, there’s a rising tension we all feel from the frequent demeaning and insulting comments about our Prime Minister and our country,” Cuddy said on Monday.
He continued, “The attempt to rename the lake our city borders, whose name comes from the Indigenous word for `lake of shining waters,’ was just too much. When the crowd at our concert sang the words `Lake Ontario’ with such vehemence, it was thrilling, positively thrilling.”
Cuddy also thanked fans after the show in a video to Blue Rodeo’s social media.
“It was a very moving night,” Cuddy said in the video. “I mean, with all this c–p that’s going on to the south of this, this renaming of our lake, when everybody sang so loud…`Lake Ontario’, it was so moving for us as a band.”
Sharing his gratitude to their audience, he added, “It’s nice to feel unified and, uh, maybe we’ve got a fight ahead of us, but it seems like we’re in good shape to do it.”
Trump’s wishes for the renamed lake have caused controversy outside of Canada also.
Google Maps has now changed the name to “Lake America” for users inside the U.S., with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum telling Fox’s Mornings with Maria program on Monday that Trump had also “reached out to Apple directly” to change its maps.
The Daily Beast has contacted The White House and Apple for comment.
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