I recently spent the week traveling around Saskatchewan for business – I hit up Saskatoon, Watrous, Regina, Yorkton and Melville over four days and saw clients large and small. I trek west for work every couple of months and every time I leave Winnipeg I am reminded of how much I love my dear home town.

Don’t get me wrong, there are interesting things about places in Saskatchewan. Saskatoon has a decent music scene, but not nearly as good as Winnipeg. Watrous’ claim to fame is both the Manitou Springs Mineral Spa and the fact that it was selected as a location for TSN’s Sportscentre broadcast in August 2009.

As I tweeted about on Thursday, I was mighty disappointed with the music scene on a Thursday night in Regina. I want to go into a bit more detail than 140 characters will allow.

It was Thursday night and I had just finished a long day of client visits. None of my Regina coworkers were up to anything but I had a rental car and some free time, so I decided to check out what was going on downtown. I hit up a sushi place first and then popped next door to a pub called O’Hanlon’s to see what was going on. I took a little tour around the pub, which looked really nice. High ceilings, just the right amount of Guinness and Keith’s ads (and mirrors) on the walls. So I go up to the barkeep, a nondescript looking chap wearing plaid, as cool kids do, and asked him if there was to be a band at the pub that night. No, but a DJ is spinning tonight. Okay, no thanks, unless it’s RJD2, Kid Koala or Girl Talk, I’ll pass.

So I ask him if there are any other venues around with live music tonight. His reply? “No, not on a Thursday.”

Not on a Thursday? Maybe Winnipeg has spoiled me, but I expect there to be live music happening somewhere pretty much every night of the week. Especially Thursday through Sunday. That’s a given, isn’t it?

I implore you, people of Regina – either do a better job of promoting your music, if in fact there is music happening that said bartender is unaware of, or just make it happen. That’s all. Have a lovely weekend.