A couple of weeks ago I went to this popular bar called Koppas. The time where I would go to trendy clubs and bars on a semi-daily basis is long and gone, but I had a good reason to step out of my comfort zone and expose myself to the sort of scenario trendy place generates. The “party” district this place is located in is like another Calle Uruguay, and the two areas are quite literally just a short walk away; the only difference is that whereas Calle Uruguay is a true party district (despite what the people who actually live there have to say about it), this series of bars and restaurants located in the banking district of the city and more mellowed down than the former. A minute away from Koppas you’ll find an English pub named “El Pavo Real,” which literally translates to “The Royal Turkey.” Doesn’t really roll out of your tongue and it doesn’t sound like what an English pub’s name would sound like, but it is English and it is a pub nonetheless. Other places to note are a groovy sushi bar, some smaller lounges and bistros, a cool joint called Lighthouse that shows great live bands every day and for free, a Marriott hotel and the casino that’s attached to it (one that looks much bigger on the outside than it actually is on the inside), and finally a couple of Mediterranean-style restaurants. There are belly dancers that put on shows between the tables a couple of times a week and it’d be hot as hell if the women doing the dancing were actually attractive.

My apologies, for I digress; Koppas is what could be considered the next “it” bar for a number of reasons. First, it’s new and in the middle of a popular party sector and that’s enough to pull in customers. Seriously, half these bars and clubs don’t have to waste a dime on adverts and promos; I can’t count the times I’ve cruised along the city and have found some new bar packed full of people only to find out it’s been open for 3 months already and I just wasn’t in the loop. The most popular club in the city at the moment is one called Mystik (as in “mystic,” with the misspelling edginess that gave Korn its rock star status), and I can tell you for a fact that in the past 7 seven years as of this writing there have been at least 3 other establishments that served the same purpose, and all of them enjoyed great success. Hell, I remember the first club I got hammered in when I got my ID was Café Dali, the first version of the place. Of course, the place has seen improvements over the years and what is there now is leaps and bounds more spectacular than what was there when it was first built (imagine the bar at the beginning of the video for Depeche Mode’s “It’s All Good,” sketchy people and all), but the real estate where the building was eradicated must’ve been blessed by a cholo Shaman King or something because no matter what has been put there, the owners have managed to make a pretty penny out of it.

What frustrates me the most out of the whole thing, dear reader, is that there will come a moment where you will read this and Koppas, Mystik and Lighthouse, among other places I have and will mention in this piece, will be long gone. Such is the way of things in the world of clubbing. It still is mighty remarkable that in a city where a little over a million people live, clubs can survive not months, but years. Still, as it is with these things, clubbers crave the next big thing and, unless you’re the infamous Rock Café (not to be mistaken by the Hard Rock Café) and have managed to stay open almost 20 years despite the fact that people have died on the dance floor, will bite the dust sooner than later.

Why was I in Koppas? Butter, the girlfriend, Jenny and I went to the place early in order to get good seating, and when I attacked the bar the only beer they had was MGD. Later I found out that they did in fact have national beer, my sweet, watered-down national beer, and they just wanted to sell MGDs, which where $1 more expensive. Koppas 1, Rob 0. We found seating and a table to wait for the main show (which was the reason why we went, the reveal forthcoming) and almost immediately some honest-to-goodness jackass in a “Koppas” shirt came to ask us if we were going to buy a bottle. We saw our bottles of beer and assumed he hadn’t seen them in our hands, so we showed them to him. Little did we know that Koppas is the type of bar that demands you buy a bottle if you want to have a fucking seat.

Koppas 2, Rob 0.

The place steadily got fuller and fuller, and we began to notice the crowd of people that congregated in Koppas: people who go out to clubs for the popularity contest. Sadly, I ran into a couple of ex-girlfriends at the joint (and in one case, the brother of an ex that really had it in for me for breaking the girl’s fragile litte heart. He was drunk and making with a girl that looked like a she-male, so the joke’s on him!), which shows that I’ve been there and done that, but I’m happy that I’m not part of that world anymore. Yet, my friends and I were severely outnumbered as more and more came. Add to that the insurgent annoyance the damn waiter was causing with us as he came every 15 minutes asking if we would buy a bottle, giving up prices and pushing for the sell… soon, we were pushing to have some personal space as well.

I don’t know if a Panamanian’s perspective of time and space is askew or what but it’s the only explanation that I can think of that explains why we’re never on time anywhere and why clubs and bars are so frickin’ small when they’re advertised as spacious and comfortable. After a couple of hours we were fending off drunks and likes of the preppy kind who wanted our table (and eventually settled in, regardless of whether we were there first or not) and inhaling the second hand smoke because we were indoors and the place didn’t have air filters to suck out the nicotine smoke, the time for the show finally came. We got there at 10. The show finally started at 12:45. During this time I hade 3 MGDs, at $3 bucks a pop, but my tab somehow totaled $11 bucks. Why $11, you ask? I asked a guy to bring me a beer and he did, and I gave him a $5 dollar bill expecting $2 back. Of course, I didn’t see him come near our area for the rest of the night.

Motherfucking Koppas 3, Rob 0.

Right before the show began I asked for a beer (national beer at this point, since they managed to sell all of their MGDs because of their “Beer Nazi” policy prior in the night) than never came. I asked for it 3 times, and it never came. The assholes that invaded our table were rubbing against Jenny’s leg to the point where if a flock of pigeons landed on their crotches thinking they were flagpoles I wouldn’t have been surprised. Rob has no beer. Rob is being shoved around by bratty idiots in high heels. Rob is not happy.

Then the show began, and Señor Loop started playing.

I well tell you right now that even though I’m an impressionable lad, there aren’t many things that blow me away. The feeling of being overwhelmed becomes a rarer occurrence as the days go by, and by proxy seeking out thrills is becoming a more daunting task over time. I still get the chills and get excited over many things, but the sense of discovery and uncontrollable emotion is one that doesn’t come by along these parts often.

Señor Loop, at the time when this gig took place, was collecting funds in order to print and distribute their latest production, and they would reward fans for paying the 5 dollar entrance fee with all-new tracks from this new album. I was there like a dart. I took on getting practically mugged by the bartender who never gave me my change, getting upset because the other waiter I asked a beer to more than a knaggy wife never showed with my brew, and having to step aside because men and women big and small decided to make the spot I was standing on a pedestrian transit route. I took on all of it, because Señor Loop was playing that night, and I was hoping that their music would make it all worthwhile for me. They had a big responsibility on their shoulders, because I’m sure that the other few people who went exclusively to hear the band play were just as annoyed as I was. “They better deliver the goods,” I thought to myself, as the baseline roared through the jam-packed bar.

One of the songs from their new album started playing, and I shit thee not, there were moments when the sound was perfect. In every sense of the word, perfect. There was a continuing crescendo that bulldozed everything and everyone in its path and, like the Incredible Hulk, the more they destroyed the stronger they’d become up to the point where time and space collapsed and all I could see, hear and feel was the music. Everything else around me ceased to exist. The shitty bartenders, the drunken table invaders, the pedestrian transit route, the ex girlfriends, the rude and obnoxious people all around us… all of it, all of it was mute in comparison to what I heard that night. The concept is very subjective and prone to the scrutiny of every person on the planet to determine what said concept is for them, but to me, all I heard was perfection. Honest-to-God perfection. I was so happy. It wasn’t a fluke either; of course, that one song (an ode to Bocas del Toro, from what I could hear) reached the peak of everything that’s good and great about music, art and performing live, staying there as if it was all planned. It’s like they said “yeah, in this instrumental section of the song let’s just play fucking perfectly, for shits and giggles. We have to reel it back in though, because the sonic onslaught will melt their brains.”

I could write a thousand words about how consistently they reached perfection in their sound, but because they did and because what I heard was perfect the best thing you can do is check them out live and buy their new album when it comes out. If you would like to know more about Señor Loop, you can visit their official site here, where they have all of their past albums in MP3 form, free to download. I talked about them as well here, and where my fandom comes from. If you appreciate music and the power it can have on people when done right, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

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