Friko Freaks Out at Bar Le Ritz

Any show which can rouse me from my Monday mid-afternoon, post-Hive free lunch nap better be one worth writing home about – Starcleaner Reunion and Friko’s Monday night show at Bar Le Ritz was worth every second and the near 40-minute trek it took to get home. In my anxiety over (somehow) never having been to Mile-ex’s indie darling venue, Bar Le Ritz, and my fundamental distrust for the 55 bus’ schedule (or lack thereof), I got there so early I saw the band arriving. I quickly settled into my corner post and scanned the sea of oversized-glasses-wearing, proud mullet sporting crowd that brimmed with Marché Floh warriors, and readied myself for a night ripe with all that these bands had to offer. 

As Starcleaner Reunion filed onto the stage, I was immediately throat punched by the overwhelming power of the drums of Sam Unger, winding me so hard I was nearly knocked off my feet from this incredible first blow. But the punches kept rolling, as I attempted to catch my breath from this full-body drum-ambush, the reverb and distortion surrounded me in an almost claustrophobic wall of sound so thick and impermeable it was as though I was placidly suffocating. Starcleaner Reunion’s undeniable melancholic groove, in combination with the wiggly guitar and keyboard, created this sense of distorted time, as though the venue's air had a heightened viscosity to it. Whether it was Bar Le Ritz’s propensity to overuse the smoke machine or the sound quality emanating from Starcleaner Reunion, time seemed to move differently during their set. As the Stereolab-esque tracks like “Plein Air” and “Snowfeel” droned on, I felt the sensation of falling in a dream, that never-ending black hole, stomach sinking moment just before your body jolts you back awake. The fragmented poetic lyricism of singer Jo Roman, whose corporeal command of the mic literally pulled words out from her, as they hung in the air surrounded by the 5-piece band’s near orchestral quality. Before ending their transportive set, they got the crowd jumping with “Ribbon Le Chou” which left me buzzing and jittery as if having just downed one too many vodka redbulls.  

No sooner had Starcleaner Reunion’s set finished than Chicago’s own four-piece band Friko exploded onto the stage with an ear-splitting post-punk sound and spirit. Lead singer Niko Kapetan’s voice pierced through the all-encompassing scratchy guitar and chugging bass like a needle straight to the vein, injecting the audience with his guttural, aching lyricism. In near comical fashion, as the emotional potency of the songs poured out of the band, their convulsive onstage writhings only intensified to the point of near possession – Kapetan looked like he was having a vision, with his eyes even rolling back in his head. 

As the tinnitus-inducing wall of sound assaulted my poor ear drums (and I kicked myself for not taking my personal ear protection more seriously), I took a second to re-collect myself and remember where I was. By the time I had gotten my bearings, just nearly shaking the residual disorientation of tracks like “Hot Air Balloon”, I was knocked off course for the third time as Kapetan approached the keyboard with “For Ella.” A tear-jerkingly raw and hauntingly ethereal song, whose throbbing ache is only magnified tenfold when experienced live. In a time when everything seems to be coated in a thick layer of irony, the earnest beauty which poured from Friko transformed the humble venue into a Sunday mass, the audience in rapt reverence of Kapetan's modest prayer.

The audience was whisked once more into an experience I can only describe as “a stretchy galactic sound” (which is all I wrote in my notebook), with songs such as “Statues,” “Cardinal” and “Where We’ve Been” which rang with a hollow nostalgia as each pang from the lonesome keyboard seemed to swallow me whole. The oceanic, fluid quality of Friko’s tide pulled the crowd back and forth like the moon. As they oscillated from genre to genre, toying with emotional highs and lows, Friko explored a full spectrum of human emotions in their hour-long set. 

Much like the mantra of Friko’s latest album, Where We’ve been, Where We Go From Here, I’ve been drawn into the band's gravitational pull and will certainly follow where they go from here. With my ears still ringing from the show, I fished my wired earbuds out of my pocket and immediately pulled up Friko’s discography, not wanting my experience with the band to evaporate. Any band that inspires me to listen to only their music all the way home is a concert worth seeing in my books, and in this case both Starcleaner Reunion and Friko left me utterly entranced.