City of Regina on hiatus for 2007

The Grade 2 City of Regina Pipe Band has announced that it will not compete as a band for the rest of 2007 due to drumming problems. The band lost its Leading-Drummer in January when Dave Roth decided to concentrate on attaining a degree in engineering at the University of Saskatchewan.

Since that time the band has been advertising for a replacement, reportedly gaining several promising leads. But with the competition season so close, a hiatus was chosen.

“I’m not going to give you one of those ‘the band is very confident about the future’ lines, because in Saskatchewan pipe bands are a little like crops: it takes a lot of work and skill to make them good, but there are no guarantees it’ll work out,” said Iain MacDonald, City of Regina pipe-major. “All you can do is put in the effort and enjoy the music and the people along the way. We have a great group of people committed to playing in a good pipe band, and we hope to be back competing in the near future.

“We are working on new members and music to get contest ready again, but we are really in need of that lead drummer to pull things together on that end. Organizationally, the band is strong, but with junior pipe bands in the area struggling for numbers, it makes it very hard to build a pipeline of new players.”

MacDonald reports that CRPB members are still practicing and working on music, but are free to join other bands. MacDonald himself is playing with the ScottishPower Pipe Band.

City of Regina was started in 1992 and has competed successfully in Grade 2. It is the only Grade 2 band in the province of Saskatchewan.

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