Panther

The night ended with a 70s-rock cover band. Panther mastermind Charlie Salas-Humara and drummer Joe Kelly decided to spend their after show party listening to rock classics at the tiny Arena Beisl, just a few steps away from the venue of their own show, where an aged mohican was threatening them in German while the middle aged blues band played a cover of The Who’s “Tommy”. It’s a good way to come down after a somewhat stressful day (long drive and annoying computers; Charlie’s extensive swearing before “Like A Bridge On Fire” is not without reason), although the music being played there could hardly be farther away from the Panther sound universe. They fuse funky rhythms, danceable electronics, catchy piano parts and insistently sung vocals and really make their audience want to move during the live show. Especially if you watch Charlie becoming a mad dancer as soon as he takes the guitar off his shoulders. Their acoustic performance of “Like Birds” proves, though, that even under completely oppositional circumstances – lying on the floor of a storage building and hardly able to move at all – they get their message across.