Prairie Joe may have another viral hit on their hands following the Blue Bombers loss in the Labour Day Classic.

The Christian country band from the Oak Lake, Man. area released a parody video on Sunday shortly after the annual rivalry finished called 'Bring on the Banjo Bowl.' The song parody's WAR's 1975 hit 'Lowrider.'

"It was actually last year I noticed that it certainly is a pattern, isn't it, when they head out to Regina that we don't usually come back with a win," lead singer Robert Thiessen says. And, unfortunately for fans of the Blue & Gold, he's right. In the last 15 LDC matchups, the Bombers have won only once.

"Me, with my mind always in the parody world and trying to find some humour in the everyday, I'd seen it and thought 'yeah that would make a good parody of some sort.' And that 'Lowrider' song came into my head - 'all my friends cheer for the Roughriders,' and I kind of ran with it. So I've been waiting a year actually on this one because I saw it last year and thought 'Yeah, it would work. And the stats are good enough that it's probably worth the work. So we wrote the song ahead of time and just waited for them to lose, and yup, sure enough ..." Thiessen says laughing.

Thiessen is a Bombers fan for the record. So, was he cheering for his team to lose what many consider to be the biggest game of the year so he could release his song? "I was torn. Like, what do you do with that, right? At the same time, you don't want them to lose, so ... I wasn't too worried. I figured we had (the video) if they lost next year."

Though it's a parody the song is also quite true for Thiessen's own personal experience. Oak Lake, Man. sits nearly dead centre between IG Field in Winnipeg and Mosaic Stadium in Regina. Google Maps says the quickest route to Winnipeg's stadium would take 3 hours and 3 minutes at 286 kilometres from Oak Lake, while a trip to Regina's Mosaic would be 3 hours and 10 minutes and 312 kilometres.

Thiessen says being that close to the centre means there's plenty of green being represented in Westman. "You know what, it's amazing in this area, even when you go shopping in Brandon you'll find a lot more green than blue ... but even within our family, my sister married a fellow from Saskatchewan and their family is die-hard Saskatchewan fans."

The video has thousands of views online across several platforms over the last 36 hours.

While Thiessen loves doing parody videos and making people laugh Prairie Joe's music is about much more than that. 

"The focus is on showing the love of Jesus and just basically having fun wherever you go and showing people that you can serve God and you can have fun doing it. That's kind of our goal in life, is to just go around and be ourselves and let Jesus do the shining."

Unfortunately for Thiessen, he will not be in the stands this week at the Banjo Bowl rematch in Winnipeg. The Bombers have won eight of the 14 Banjo Bowls since its inaugural 2004 match.

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chilly