At GM Place on Sunday, March 29

So this is where it ends. Four days of booze, bustle, and the Herculean effort to pretend there isn’t a recession, courtesy of an industry whose diagnosis might be terminal. All that trouble was a world away from the 2009 Juno Awards blowout at GM Place.

I arrived just in time to see thefour men-children of Hedley sucking up an impressive amount of pubescent adoration as they swaggered along the red carpet in a darling set of matching white jackets. Others made less of an impact. Like Brent Butt, for instance, who was greeted with a lonelier round of applause, although at least he didn’t have to deal with the abrupt silence that fell anytime some poor behind-the-scenes industry schmuck stepped out of a limo.

The carpet ended in a white-rose-festooned holding-pen-cum-bar somewhere in the guts of GM Place. It gradually filled with industry types, media boobs, and stars of lesser or greater magnitude, all of them plotting over beers to save their industry as they know it. You could spot Leslie Feist skittering through the throng, or the Trews making for the bar, or TSN’s Michael Landsberg holding court with Christ-knows-who.

Ball gowns and an ocean of cleavage completed the picture until the important people were funnelled into the stadium for the big show, and the grey-faced media types were herded into a bunker downstairs where technical problems saved us the trouble of moaning through Nickelback’s top-of-the-broadcast performance of “Something in Your Mouth”.

Once the video feed finally flickered to life, host Russell Peters’s monologue brought appreciative guffaws from writers, bloggers, and broadcasters who probably wished they had either the guts, permission, or plain bad taste to ridicule Mike Reno’s weight (“Looks like somebody’s been eating for the weekend”) or Steven Page’s coke bust.

It was funny, cheap, and mean (best line: “Hedley and Simple Plan are here. I don’t really know who’s who”), and it made the media scrums that unfolded downstairs feel absurdly lightweight. Not that anybody was going to be grilled for an opinion on, say, the Middle East or anything, but a giddy Lights was asked about her tattoos and her comic-book obsession after she’d scored a best-new-artist trophy. Allan Waters Humanitarian Award recipient Sarah McLachlan was begged to sing the chorus of either “Adia” or “Into the Fire”. (We were treated to the former.) Questioned as to whether he felt he’d “mastered songwriting”, Dallas Green snorted “absolutely not” as he stood there clutching his songwriter-of-the-year trophy. (Full marks for honesty, Mr. Green.) Artist of the year Sam Roberts, who is diminutive and adorable enough to make the perfect addition to any knickknack cabinet or curio shelf, faced the hard-hitting inquiry “How important is facial hair to Canadian music?” Rap-recording winner Kardinal Offishall appeared via a video we couldn’t hear.

And so it went on, with only Peters injecting vinegar into the proceedings. When a photographer face-planted with a nauseating whump right in front of him, it prompted near-demonic peals of laughter from the host. “You loser!” he screamed at the crumpled figure, reminding us that all comedians are basically assholes. “Worst paparazzi ever!”

It became harder and harder to keep an eye on the big show once the train of winners began to appear downstairs in the bunker, but the Sam Roberts Band slam-dunked with “Them Kids”, and Simple Plan’s “Your Love Is a Lie” took on an inadvertent poignancy from the dawning sense that the quintet’s Hot Topic constituency might finally have flatlined. (The band walked away empty-handed.)

There were two big surprises of the evening. The first was Loverboy, whose four surviving members made a sincere impression after receiving the Canadian Music Hall of Fame nod, and the second was Nickelback.

Whatever indie-cred gains the Junos made last year with Feist’s five-award sweep were squandered this year with the ’Back taking album, group, and fan-choice trophies. Nickelback has remained magically untouched as the music industry has collapsed around it, so it’s only natural that the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences would reward the only kind of success it really understands.

The surprising part is that Chad Kroeger is apparently so inured to the vicious animosity he faces daily that even he apparently couldn’t believe it when his band scored the fan choice.

Facing reporters shortly afterward, a nervous but congenial Kroeger actually appeared to shrink as he softly told them, “We’re a very mainstream band that’s not popular with you guys, but that’s okay. I’m terrified because it seems like you’re letting up on us a bit.” It was either a really good performance, or Chad Kroeger isn’t the dink people want him to be. If you prefer to believe the latter, maybe the right thing to do is offer up a “Congrats.”