If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone complain this weekend about the relative obscurity of most of the lineup at this year's North by Northeast music festival, or that any of the acts worth seeing turn up here every second week anyway, I'd be able to pay my way down to the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., for the real thing.

Full disclosure: I just plagiarized myself. That was, word for word, the opening sentence of my wrap-up for last year's edition of NXNE. But if the music fest goes another 10 years, I suspect I'll be able to use it for each one.

Each time, it'll be a bit unfair. NXNE is not a world-class event, which is a problem in a city obsessed with whether or not it's world-class. But it is what it is, and what it is isn't really all that bad.

If you're looking for star power, this isn't your event. Organizers tack on a big name or two, in this case punk pioneers Television, to generate some headlines. But those sets feel totally disconnected from the rest of the festival - especially when only a few wristbanded festival-goers are allowed in, and everyone else has to shell out $50 for a ticket.

Otherwise, the prestige this year came mostly from Amy Millan, the Stars singer premiering material from her new solo album. And in a convenient bit of timing, the cancellation of last week's (non-NXNE) Snow Patrol show meant that band's opening act, buzz-worthy Brits the Duke Spirit, were free to play not one, but two shows on the festival's first night. Watching front woman Liela Moss strutting around an unusually rowdy Horseshoe Tavern's stage at 2:30 a.m., NXNE briefly felt like the sort of festival where big, unpredictable things happen at all hours.

That sensation popped up occasionally elsewhere - mostly courtesy of the Montreal-bred, German-based King Khan & His Shrines, an insanely frenetic soul/R & B outfit that spent three nights causing near riots at the Silver Dollar and Comfort Zone. But mostly, NXNE is the sort of festival where small, predictable things happen in rigidly enforced time slots. Bands take the stage on the hour, play for about 35 minutes, then quickly make way for the next one. Most of these bands are Canadian - and yes, it's not exactly an earth-shattering event when they make one of their semi-regular appearances in Toronto.

But, um, so what, exactly? I won't claim to have had any life-altering experiences this weekend. But why is it a bad thing when 400-plus bands all converge at the same time, giving fans a chance to sample five or six in one night and determine who stacks up best? Why do music snobs who typically complain about lack of interest in obscure bands lament a festival that fills bars for acts 99.9% of the population has never heard of -- one that lets the criminally underappreciated Old Soul play a packed Horseshoe, or up-and-comers like The Adam Brown generate a genuine buzz with a half-hour of pure energy at The Boat? If nothing else, why not just shut up and enjoy the extended drinking hours?

Probably because NXNE is a scapegoat. Most of the other cities Toronto likes to compare itself to have music blowouts that draw in swarms of outsiders. New York has the CMJ festival. London, England, has an endless number of summer festivals in close proximity. Los Angeles has Coachella down the highway. A notch down, Chicago has the Pitchfork Festival and Montreal has Pop Montreal. And then there's Austin, of course, which all of us drool over; if SXSW isn't enough, the Texas town has the massive Austin City Limits festival to rub it in.

For some reason, the capital of this country's music industry - a city that has both the Canadian headquarters of all the major labels and a thriving indie scene - doesn't have a single live event that puts it on the map. For local indie devotees, a one-day show on the Toronto islands with Broken Social Scene and a few of their friends has become an annual event. For teenagers who listen to commercial rock radio, there's Edgefest. And there's Canadian Music Week for ... well, I'm not really sure who that one's for, actually. But despite virtually every interesting act coming through Toronto, nobody has managed to put together a regular event that combines enough of them to really make a splash.

The closest we come, with the exception of Guelph's Hillside Festival down Highway 401, is NXNE. And for its trouble, a festival that at least succeeds in giving exposure to smaller bands gets labelled as an embarrassment for not attracting larger ones.

Maybe one year, those doing the complaining will instead set their minds to how to get something more ambitious here. Even if there's more red tape than in other locales, it shouldn't be all that difficult for the city's stable of artists, promoters and other industry types to think a little bigger -- something on the scale of those other cities' must-attend events.

Let's hope they eventually get around to it. I don't want to have to plagiarize myself in perpetuity.