Panida to celebrate birthday with dance-filled night

The Panida Theatre has been a fixture in Sandpoint through ups and downs for 97 years as of this coming Saturday, Nov. 16.

To celebrate, the theatre is hosting a dance-filled night featuring Raquel Rodriguez, a multifaceted independent music artist based in Los Angeles, and opening act Lucas Brown and the Night Mayors, a funk and soul party band out of Spokane that features a rotating cast of the region's best musicians.

Rodriguez’s music has a fun, groovy, soulful sound that is eminently danceable.

She said her unique sound is a product of her childhood in the melting pot of Los Angeles. Rodriguez said that in high school, it felt like there was a kid from every country in her classes. All the different languages, cuisines and cultures mixing together became her normal.

“I feel like a lot of times people are like, ‘She’s so jazzy, and funky, and soulful and I hear this in her and I hear that in her,’” Rodriguez said. “Well, that’s because I heard all of those things growing up. Those are all the different sounds of LA that I kind of incorporate into my music these days.”

Rodriguez said that she pulls from her personal experiences for inspiration in her music and places a premium on authenticity because that authenticity has worked for her.

Arguably her most popular song “YOU” was almost released as a single, but in talking to the people around her, Rodriguez decided it was more of a “deep cut,” a song that would be appreciated by musicians for its musicality but felt specific to her and her experience not following the expectations society puts on women to follow one specific path: find who they love, get married, get a house and have kids. She said she had nothing against that path, but it had not been a path that worked for her.

When her most recent album was released, the song took off and Rodriguez said it blew her mind seeing how many people resonated with the song's message.

“People truly just want someone to relate to,” she said. “That’s why we listen to some of our favorite artists, because they make us feel like we’re heard and seen and to know that I was able to do that for someone else was just really cool.”

Rodriguez has been an independent artist for her entire musical career. She said she is not opposed to working with a traditional record label but feels that her authenticity makes her a less appealing candidate for labels because she knows who she is and what she wants. There is no room for a record label to mold her into what they want her to be.

“I’ve built my brand so, so specifically over the last 10 years,” she said. “An executive coming in, thinking that they might be able to change me or have any sort of say, that would probably throw me off.”

Rodriguez released her latest album “Housewife” on Oct. 18, and said she is currently focused on her live performances. She said she enjoys performing and touring but she’s not a six-week tour type of person. Instead, she prefers shorter two or three-week tours where she can focus on the quality of each performance.

Rodriguez said she is trying to embrace touring because she feels that it is something you can only do when you are young, but someday down the line, her dream is to own a music venue.

Recently, a famous music venue in her neighborhood in Los Angeles closed. The venue had seen the likes of Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and Chaka Khan while it was in operation and had been known as the Apollo of the West, according to Rodriguez.

When the venue was reopened, the new owners had completely changed the space — and not for the better — according to Rodriguez. She said she has not seen anyone utilize the space since the change.

“It kind of broke my heart that they took this legendary venue and didn’t bring it back to life,” she said. “That kind of sparked a little fire in me that was like, “I could do that. If I had the money, I could bring that venue back to life and then some.’”

But Rodriguez said that dream would have to wait. She is not done making music yet and said she has at least one more album coming down the pipe in the next couple of years.

Rodriguez will be performing at the Panida on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. Doors open an hour before the show. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased on the Panida’s website or at the door.

The Panida Theatre is running a promotion for the show where all ticket purchasers will receive one free raffle ticket for a full Schweitzer season pass giveaway — donated by Schweitzer — and will have the option to buy more raffle tickets once inside the venue.

    Independent artist Raquel Rodriguez performs in Amsterdam. Photo curtesy of Raquel Rodriguez.