I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: December 13, 2024] Karina Rykman 

Last year, my wife and I saw Karina Rykman twice.  First as an opening act and then for our final show of 2023, as a headliner.

The show was great–loud and dancing and fun and everything you’d want in a jamband adjacent musician who totally kicks ass.

When she announced another Philly show this year (my second to last show of the year, but my wife’s final show of the year once again), I snatched up tickets immediately.

Karina is such a joy to see live.  Her band rocks and her choice of songs (both her own and covers) are designed for maximum fun (and chops).  And of course, she has a perpetual smile on her face–no one enjoys playing music as much as she does.

Her original songs are kind of dancey–they fall into a jamming/dance vibe which is kind of unexpected given how hard and heavy some of her actual jams are.  Because when she steps back and lets her impressive guitar player Adam November take over, he’s a wizard with his effects and soloing skills.  And her drummer Chris Corsico is pretty awesome too.

When we saw her last time, she had sold out the 200 capacity Milkboy and this time she sold out the 450 capacity Foundry.  I feel like she should be even bigger–she plays lots of festivals and is very friendly with the guys in Phish and other bands.  But I’m glad we got to see her again in a smallish venue.

The crowd was pretty fascinating at this one–people were dressed VERY fancily, like it was a date night or something. And there were lots of people who knew every word–I’m so glad we got there early and were on the railing.

Even though we’ve seen her three times in about a year and she doesn’t have a lot of new music out, the show did give us some new songs (it wouldn’t have mattered if the setlist was the same because her songs are good and the jams are different every time).

The opening Skyark/Slowlark is from the album but she hadn’t played it last time we saw her.  Then came a couple of songs from the album, Joyride and All That You Wanted.  These two songs segued into each other and ended with the lengthy Plants, in which Adam November shows off his guitar skills and his bag of tricks.

The fact that this segued into another instrumental, the defiantly noisier and more chaotic “Dirty South” (with amazing time changes and starts and stops) was super fun and meant that it was something like 15 minutes of instrumental jam going on.

She doesn’t really talk much between songs but she did talk about how much she loves Philly.  There was a joke earlier in the night that the Muscle Tough bassist’s dentist was there and Karina told us her dentist was there too–they name checked their dentists and, indeed her dentist (who is in Philly even though she lives in NYC) was there–with the fancy dressed people.

She led the room in a rousing song about the Eagles (I had heard people say Fly Eagles Fly, I had no idea there was a fricking song about it).  And then jumped into a killer “City Kids” which included Jonathan Colman from Muscle Tough.  So there were two bassists on stage and they had some friendly competition while jamming.

She played an unexpected country/bluegrass song called The Crawdad Song and then jumped into Goji Island.

Back to the album for Run of the Mill and then a fun cover of Chaise Lounge (She’s got a number of covers in her pocket that she can pull out as needed).

And of course she can do improv at will, like when she made up a song about Dave their merch guy (hired just for this show).

By this time the whole place was vibing and she played No Occasion which led into some Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer and a little bit of LCD Soundsystem’s Daft Punk is Playing at My House.  And when she played Atom Dance, there were some nod to OutKast’s So Fresh, So Clean in her bassline.

The set had run about 2 hours and she was ready to call it a night with a great version of Elevator, which the band topped off with the intro to Kiss’ Detroit Rock City.

She then jumped over the barrier on the side of the stage and ran to the merch table to sign “anything and everything–I’m approachable to a fault.”  We decided not to bother–it was late, we were tired and since we were literally inches from her for the show, we felt like we’d already met her.

I’m not sure what she had planned for next year, but I suspect she’ll be laying much larger venues next time she tours.

 

2024 (The Foundry)	2023 (Milkboy)	2023 (open for Guster)
Corinne, Corinna [Bo Carter song tape]	Joyride ♥	Beacon
Skylark/Slowlark ♥	All That You Wanted ♥	Joyride ♥
Joyride ♥>	Plants ♥	All That You Wanted ♥
All That You Wanted ♥>	Dirty South ‰	City Kids ‰
Plants ♥>	City Kids ‰	Run of the Mill ♥
Dirty South ‰	Springtheme (Ween cover)	Chaise Lounge (Wet Leg cover)
The Eagles’ Victory Song (Charles Borrelli and Roger Courtland cover)	Pepper (Butthole Surfers cover)	No Occasion §
City Kids ‰ (with Jonathan Colman (Muscle Tough) on Bass)	Fever Dream ♥	The Hardest Button to Button (White Strips cover)
The Crawdad Song (Petersens cover)	Run of the Mill ♥	Elevator ♥
Goji Island	Satanist (boygenius cover)
Run of the Mill ♥ >	Reboot
Chaise Lounge (Wet Leg cover)	No Occasion §
Reboot	Genius of Love (Tom Tom Club cover)
Improv (“The Dave Appreciation Song”)	Elevator ♥
No Occasion §  (with “Psycho Killer” (The Talking Heads) interpolation, >)	encore
Daft Punk Is Playing at My House (LCD Soundsystem cover)	Song 2 (Blur Cover)
Atom Dance (with “So Fresh, So Clean” (OutKast) tease)
Elevator ♥ (with “Detroit Rock City” (KISS) outro)

♥ Joyride
§ 2021 single
‰ 2020 single