I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: August 5, 2025] Friko

I was really excited for this show–two of my favorite bands playing together.

I arrived roughly at 7, expecting to maybe miss the first song of the opener.  But no.  And not only that, I walked down to the pit (I was so excited to get pit tickets) and walked right up to the barrier.  So I was front and left for the entire night.

The night started with Friko, a young band from Chicago.  I’d listened to them ahead of time and enjoyed them, but I was so impressed by their live show.

I was delighted to be in front of Korgan Robb on guitar who was wringing all kinds of interesting sounds out of his guitar.  And since I was right in front of him, I got to watch him mess with his pedals and then find out what he was about to create.

Although it turns out that he is not actually part of the band.  Friko is presently a duo Niko Kapetan sings and plays guitar and and Bailey Minzenberger is the drummer.  For this tour in addition to Korgan, they had David Fuller on bass.

Niko has a great, diverse voice.  He reminded me at time of Thom Yorke, which worked really well with the songs they played.

I wanted to see the setlist, but couldn’t.  So I don’t know what songs they played (except for the last one, Choo Choo, which “is about trains.”

There was one song that started slow and then built to a chaotic peak, only to return to the slow intro.  I really enjoyed watching Bailey on drums too, they were inventive and threw in some really fun fills (using mallets on one song, too!)

Their set was a lot of fun and I can see them really taking off.

Likley setlist:

Crimson to Chrome
Crashing Through
Cardinal
Where We’ve Been
Get Numb to It!
Choo Choo