The 2009 WCMAs

Stylus heads to Brandon, avoids fights

By Michael Elves

They say you can never really go home again, but since Brandon hosted this year’s Western Canadian Music Awards, I returned to the Wheat City—where I haven’t lived for over a decade, but where I spent my formative years—to take in the sights and sounds at showcases and sessions held during the weekend of September 17-20.
While much of Brandon remains the same as when I left, there have certainly been changes in the intervening years; 18th Street North now looks like Kenaston at McGillivray, with its big-box stores replacing what was once a great tobogganing hill. The Keystone Centre has been re-branded the Westman Communications Group Place and fused to Canad Inns like a conjoined twin.