Panama makes The Vic their victim

by Scott Wilson

Jarrah McCleary, lead singer/keyboardist/songwriter for Panama, hails from Sydney, Australia and aside from recording Panama’s two albums in L.A. and San Francisco, this tour is the first time he’s spent any considerable duration in the U.S. and sensibly his largest concert -as he told Quip in a phone interview the day after playing The Vic in Chicago – is tornados:

Jarrah: Can they pick up a car or do they just go over them?

Scott: Oh yeah, they can throw a car. But you have to drive right into one. It’s pretty unlikely, really.

Jarrah: What do you do if, like, you’re in a car with no trees or shelter or anything around?

Scott: Drive away.

Jarrah is an easy guy to talk to. He says one of his favorite things about touring is getting to stop and spend time with the locals before every show. “Kalamazoo was good, reminded me of the Australian way of life, people were laid back. One of the best things about this tour is how cool everybody in America has been.” Hear that Canada and Mexico? People like us.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get to spend much time hanging out in Chicago, he said. Having done a radio show earlier in the day followed by sound check and a very strict start-time at exactly 9 pm, Panama was in worker-bee mode all day. It’s a testament to the underlying skills of Jarrah, Tim (drums),  and Tom (electric noise machine, guitar) that they were absolutely spot-on with every beat and cord. The doors at the Vic opened at 8, but because of the small ticket box and thorough security checkpoint people were still finding a place to stand in the capacity theater when the show started, so there was a lot of yelling and bustling going on during the first few songs. Panama took it in stride, or possibly fed off the chaos, and played all the harder. Jarrah said that when the lights were on him and he couldn’t see all the people the show felt intimate, but when the lights turned to the audience, the standing-only pit and filled balcony above, it added another layer of intensity. “We enjoyed it, we’ve been looking forward to this show for a long time.”

As an audience member you could feel the excitement radiating off Panama throughout the show. Although their music is more contemplative than dancey, the urge to move about was undeniable. And when Tim broke into spastic drum solos that were both short, intricate, and amazingly on point, it was hard not to feel awed.

Because of time constraints with the next band Panama played every song back-to-back with just a moment in between to take a swig of water and say a word or two to the audience. The non-stopness of the sound design induced a trancelike state and whether they played for an hour or fifteen very intense minutes is hard to say.

So Panama killed it, but could the show have been improved? I think so, though through no action of the musicians. The Vic is big, but it’s a theatrical venue, which means there was a lot of empty stage space that could have been used to stack more speakers. As stated earlier, all the jostling of people trying to find their spots and yell to their friends at the crack of 9 when Panama was set to begin made it kind of hard to hear, or at least be consumed by the music. But once everybody calmed down the sound got better, not that it fazed Panama.

One of the goals of a live musician is to outplay their recorded tracks on the road so that the audience feels like they really got something for going out that night, and Panama has this nailed.  Their songs were layered and diverse and the intensity they brought was mesmerizing. After North America they’ll be in Europe, so keep your eyes on those tour dates to see when they’ll be in your town.