You’d be forgiven if the first question to cross your mind when thinking of the 2007 Western Canadian Music Awards is, “Of all places, why Moose Jaw?” When I first heard about it, I had no intention of going but, when The Summerlad asked if I’d come along to act as an extra guitar player to help present their epic City of Noise in its entirety in one of Canada’s most beautiful churches, the question changed. “Moose Jaw? Why not?”

We arrived in town on Friday afternoon, glancing at the night’s schedule and realizing we’d already missed The Blood Lines and Sylvie the night before. The Zion United Church on Main Street had an organ that took our breath away and a golden dome that sucked the sound from the stage and spun it around the heads of the audience. We packed up and rushed over to Jake’s Saloon to catch what we could of Matt Masters, who was spot-on and, uncommon for these types of music showcase conferences, was even called out by the audience for an encore.

Masters’s manager Amy Darling grabbed me by the arm, in search of a cock-block against one of the locals. He’d been milling about all night in a stained grey T-shirt and jogging pants, eating what we soon learned is a late-night Moose Jaw delicacy — the taco in a bag. Take a bag of Doritos, cut it lengthwise across its face, and smash the chips inside. Liberally fill with nacho cheese, sour cream and salsa and consume with a fork. Flirt liberally and hope for the best. Sadly for our Moose Jaw brother, Darling is not a taco-in-a-bag kind of girl. Granted, we headed outside and consumed overly chewy smokies in stale buns moments later, but at least we had access to napkins.

We decided to do the festival up right, and raced from venue to venue, picking showcases based on band name and whether or not the venue served tacos in a bag. I considered maintaining diplomacy and not critiquing the bands, but I’d suggest steering far clear of Wheatmonkeys (generic, store-bought rich jock punk tunes. Sample onstage banter: “Don’t believe anyone! And fuck you!”) should they ever come to town.

The night grew cold and I grew tired, yet we still had a set by the D.Rangers to catch, and finally the WCMAs took off. The D.Rangers’ ramshackle hoedown dance party ended with broken mandolin strings, shredded violin bows, and an en masse exit for a party at Masters’s hotel room at Capone’s that not only raged on through the night, but also gained mention at the following morning’s awards ceremony. I was first off to bed, and first awakened when the Summerlad’s sound tech stepped on my head after stumbling in around 5 a.m.

Speaking of the awards themselves, a load of folks I’ve never heard of went home with these shiny baubles. I didn’t meet a single person who actually attended the ceremony either, but I suppose that’s what you get for holding the event at 10 a.m. on a Saturday.

I decided to skip the lectures and devote the day to exploring Moose Jaw. Twenty minutes later, I was in a café crying on Shannon Martin’s (she of File Under: Music, our own Hot Little Rocket’s Vancouver label) shoulder that there was nothing to do. I’d asked locals about movie theatres and was told the only one in town was miles away at the mall.

Finally, evening arrived and I found myself shepherded onto a shuttle bus for the VIP dinner, which I was most definitely not on the list for. “Just look like you belong,” Amy Darling insisted. All I could picture was forceful eviction and a sad walk back into the city in search of something — anything — to eat. Even taco in a bag, if need be.

But, alas, the walk past the guest-list girl was easy, and we sat down to a steak the size of my face. Power brokers networked and we critiqued their outfits and stuck unopened bottles of wine into our bag for the night’s planned party replay. We rushed out quickly back down Main Street to catch Little Miss Higgins at the Mae Wilson Theatre, passing the movie theatre and shopping mall, all of six blocks from downtown.

We dashed to Hot Blood Bombers at the Royal Bar and Grill, caught moments of GreenTaRA at The Park Night Club, and ended things off with the familiar faces of Lorrie Matheson and AA Sound System at Jake’s. Strolling from venue to venue, it finally hit me how excited the people of Moose Jaw were to host the WCMAs. It’s not often that a town this size hosts a performer like Barney Bentall (opened for by, uh, his son Dustin Bentall).

I once again opted for bed over Capone’s and, slipping into sleep (my head protected), I could think only of the bio handed to us by Canadian Idol contestant Josh Palmer for new project The Rebellion. “To reinvent, revolt, reform… to rebel,” it reads. At least a little bit last weekend in Moose Jaw, the locals did just that. It might not have been entirely my kind of rock ’n’ roll, but hey, it’s always someone’s. And you can’t knock that.