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It's slowly starting to reveal itself to the playboys of the world as a recognizable smudge on their windshield of international nightlife hotspots. While salsa, meringue, and reggaetón tend to sing lead in Panama's music scene, rock definitely makes enough noise to bring up the rear.

Easily Panama's most notable export is Cage 9, a Foo Fighers-esque trio now making rattling sound waves throughout the western United States. The two anchors of the group, Evan Rodaniche and Gustavo Aued, who grew up in the former Canal Zone and old city center respectively, have this infectiously spastic stage presence. Their songs regularly ooze from the speakers of rock bars in Panama City, received warmly by a crowd of tattoo-clad punks who know every single word. Cage 9's music today is decidedly American sounding and has this sort of déjŕ vu quality in that even though they're new, you feel like you've heard them before.

So you and your friends—in your ripped jeans and lopsided hats—are ready to hit the town after dinner, huh? Not so fast, my little rock bumpkin. Panama City nightlife, and more importantly, the Panama rock scene doesn't really get thumping ‘til late, like two or three, when the normal people of the world are in such deep slumber, that a throbbing baseline wont wake them up. The majority of the country's rock bands will play wherever they can get a gig: clubs like Sahara (banking district) being all the rage—their outdoor breezy patio and live stage area rocking hard ‘til seven or eight in the AM. For a breath of fresh air, wander outside the club to find tens of deliciously grubby vendors selling spicy smoked chorizos, huge hunks of fresh watermelon, and frosty beers that cost no more than a pencil: New York City has nothing on this!

Compared to the states—where tough-looking bouncers wear baby-sized T-shirts and snooty bartenders serve drinks with all the courtesy of feral boar hogs—the rock hang outs in Panama and the people who operate them are relatively attitude-free.

One of the city's coolest venues is the kind of place that always reminds you, you're not as cool as you think. La Casona de Las Brujas is set in Panama's Casco Viejo district—an area once thriving as the city center, and now reviving itself as an artsy neighborhood. More specifically La Casona breathes from within the hollowed-out shell of a historical building, the Spanish façade still semi-intact and its inside crazy with all kinds of dramatic lighting and wandering plant life.

Stroll into the courtyard on a busy weekend night and the live music's bound to hit you like a seagull swooping in to sip your cerveza: it's this great sound that'll make even the most timid of its listeners bust a groove. Some of the music is in English, most in Spanish, and the bands tend to be less raging and more mellow than their rock counterparts in other countries. Total bohemian hang out.

For another option, try rockin' out at Unplugged, a spot known for live Panamanian bands singing dead American cover songs. This bit of rock music nostalgia lies at the foot of Panama's all-too-trendy Calle Uruguay and is a bit reminiscent of a college radio station; its walls bejeweled with old records, distressed posters and messy sharpie scribblings from drunken partiers. On a good weekend night, the place'll fill up around midnight with an alternative and diverse crowd: the kind of people who belong in iPod commercials. As the night gets older, then into the early morning, a smoky haze'll form over the scarlet red pool table as well as behind the bar, setting this funky underground mood that is sort of surreal. There's almost always a different rock band jamming out on a stage which more resembles a shallow coffin—this black box just wide enough to fit a drum set. Nonetheless, the sound in the small confines of Unplugged is clean and raucous.

Lastly, in a neat little building right on the Bay of Panama, hangs a little hole called Liverpool. Starting with the nineteen sixties VW bus out front, spray painted and wreaking of hippies, then leading inside to the Rolling Stones cartoons on the walls, it becomes obvious where this place's heart is at. The bands tend to play a new-age variation on eighties hits from the States and its patrons, the ones that come back week after week, can't get enough of it.

Rock in Panama isn't huge yet, still overshadowed by music with more of a Latin-edge. It seems that every night the scene is becoming more and more mainstream, and like everything else, it has its break outs and lulls. For the time being though, its growing with Panama: people from all over the world are coming to see what all the fuss is about, and ‘til its last dying day, the nightlife scene in Panama will be rockin'.

Panama Info

Comments (1)

bwh: ... Also try: > Pavo Real -- books metal and cover bands, usually a $3 cover > Lighthouse -- great variety, often 3-4 bands in one night, no cover > Koppas -- top quality bands, but usually only one, and a $5 cover 1 August 07, 2007

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