Barenaked Ladies performed “O Canada” before the Buffalo Bills’ Thursday night opener against the Detroit Lions at Highmark Stadium, launching a new cross-border pregame tradition in prime time.
The Toronto quartet’s performance marked the first time the Bills paired both national anthems at a home game in Orchard Park, opening the question of whether the gesture becomes a weekly fixture rather than a one-night showcase.
Barenaked Ladies’ Long Road to Highmark Stadium
Ed Robertson and Steven Page founded the band in 1988 as Scarborough, Ontario, teenagers who bonded over a shared music camp job, according to ClassicRockHistory.com. The pair expanded into a five-piece and landed a breakthrough with 1992’s “Gordon,” a Canadian smash stacked with staples like “If I Had $1,000,000” and “Brian Wilson.”
American audiences caught up later. “Stunt” reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in 1998 behind the chart-topping “One Week,” and “Maroon” followed two years later at No. 5, powered by “Pinch Me.” Robertson and company also wrote the theme song for “The Big Bang Theory,” stretching their reach well past rock radio.
Steven Page left the group in 2009. Ed Robertson, Jim Creeggan, Tyler Stewart and Kevin Hearn have carried on as a quartet ever since, banking two Grammy nominations, eight Juno Awards and a 2018 induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. The band’s catalog has since grown to 18 studio albums, including 2023’s “In Flight,” and the group released the new songs “Almost Ready” and “Careful (For Dee)” earlier this year while touring internationally, according to ClassicRockHistory.com.
Thursday’s anthem wasn’t the band’s first brush with Bills football. Barenaked Ladies sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” during a Buffalo-Jets game at Toronto’s Rogers Centre in December 2009, according to Daily Hive, flipping the anthem assignment from that appearance to this one.
Why the Buffalo Bills Chose “O Canada”
The Bills sit roughly two hours from Toronto, and the franchise has spent years courting that market. Canadian residents made up an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the club’s season-ticket base, according to Bleacher Report, which first reported the anthem plan on Sept. 9. Auliʻi Cravalho followed the Canadian anthem with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and OneRepublic was to headline the stadium’s first halftime show, according to the Buffalo Bills‘ game notes.
The move revives a Buffalo tradition that predates Highmark Stadium. Under late owner Ralph Wilson, the Bills once staged an annual Canadian fan-appreciation game near Canadian Thanksgiving that featured both anthems before the practice was dropped roughly two decades ago, according to the Associated Press. The team later played a run of games at Rogers Centre from 2008 through 2013, an arrangement that similarly leaned on Ontario support before it ended.
Buffalo’s NHL neighbor offered a blueprint the whole time. The Sabres, owned like the Bills by the Pegula family, have opened every home game with both anthems since the franchise’s founding in 1970, regardless of that night’s opponent.
With “O Canada” now sung inside Highmark Stadium, the Bills join the Seattle Seahawks as the only NFL franchises to build a Canadian anthem into their pregame routine, a nod to fans who cross the border for football on both sides of the Peace Bridge.
Who Are Barenaked Ladies? Why They Sang Canadian Anthem at Bills Game