A Big Picture on the Panama music scene

By Lourdes Quijada

A new rock band which debuted last weekend at the Hard Rock Hotel in Panama is aiming to raise the performance bar for the genre, and their first show did just that.

The band, led by guitarist Mark Seaton calls itself Big Picture, and with its breadth of offerings, it’s a big picture indeed. Months of rehearsal produced an evening to remember as the band

and its gymnastically and vocally talented singer Luis Granados, led the audience down a rock encrusted memory lane. Classics from the era of Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Jimmy Hendrix, Max Webster and Aldo Nova had toes tapping and heads nodding (not to sleep, but to the music).

And lest you think this was stuff for folks old enough to remember the glory days of rock pathfinders like Bill Haley and Chuck Berry, there was a large pre-wedding party group, with likely not one over 25, who were on their feet giving their 2013 version of the rocking in the cinema aisles that erupted when the Bill Haley movie “Rock Around the Clock” first hit the screens.
That’s enough to convince me that the performances will attract people of all ages to their regular Saturday night gig at the Hard Rock Hotel , starting around 10 pm. There’s no cover charge, but you might want to keep your credit card handy if you want to charge your glass.
If you are wondering what to do until 10, there’s an excellent menu at the restaurant at the other end of Panama’s longest bar, which has become the latest haunt of the “in” crowd.
And talking of raising the bar, the happy standing crowd outside of lounge area took time off from raising glasses, to crowd around the tapes separating them from the lounge where we early comers sat at our ease.