Rilo Kiley stuns kids with sweet tunes

By Katie Williams
Collegian Editor
October 3, 2007

Indie band Rilo Kiley sold out its Philadelphia show Tuesday, Sept. 25, at one of the stops on its tour of the country. The band, which includes Jenny Lewis, Blake Sennett, Pierre de Reeder and Jason Boesel, performed with Art in Manila and Grand Old Party.

One of the benefits of being 21 is that my friend and I could sit on the red, cushioned seats on the balcony of the Trocadero. Sipping my overpriced beer, watching the sea of 14-year-olds huddled against the stage below me, I prepared for Rilo Kiley and the opening acts.

Art in Manila took the stage first. The new project of Orenda Fink, formerly of Azure Ray, performed songs off of its debut album, Set the Woods on Fire. The group played the type of music you could drift away and get lost in, creating a very ambient set. It seemed great, the exact type of music one wants to hear at a small, intimate show. Unfortunately, in a venue like the Troc, the sound seemed to get lost, or at least was lost on the audience. The vocals were also a little hard to make out, and kept getting buried behind the instruments.

“Anything you want/can be saved don’t you know/so don’t give up,” crooned Fink on one soft and sweet song, which ended with an unexpected guitar rock-out, causing the two female members of the band to dance around the stage.

Grand Old Party took the stage next. Like with Art in Manila, the band’s vocals were hard to make out, which leads one to believe that it was the venue’s fault.

Grand Old Party, or GOP, was considerably more upbeat and danceable than Art in Manila. The group’s songs reminded one of something that would be played at the end of a Tarantino movie. The band tore up the stage like it was the headliner, and completely silenced the audience that had been talking during the previous act.

The crowd, of course, remained still. Apparently, at some point, Philly audiences were told that the “cool” thing to do was to stand completely immobile and look uninterested in the bands they paid money to see. Watching the audience from above made me feel like I was watching a rally for the brainwashed youth of America.

Finally, Rilo Kiley took the stage. Lewis stood at the front of the band, dressed in a black top, silver sequined tiny shorts, white tights and silver heels. She was a sharp contrast to the rest of the band, who were dressed much more conservatively in black suits. The act was joined by the female lead singers of both Art in Manila and the GOP.

Each song that the band played became a sing-a-long, as the audience gleefully (yet still immobile-y) sang all the words. One example of this was “Portions for Foxes,” which got the audience singing so loud that at times it drowned out Lewis.

Most songs had some added element to them to make their performance memorable. For “Break It Up,” Lewis broke out her cowbell, and played along in a manner which would have pleased Christopher Walken. The end of “The Moneymaker,” the first single from new album Under the Black Light, became a dazzling light show. The band’s somber songs also got attention. “Ripcord” was performed with only two people onstage, playing the mandolin and the ukulele.

Perhaps the most surprising moment was when someone from backstage threw two giant blue balls filled with gold confetti out onto the audience. They passed them around for a few minutes before one of the balls accidentally hit the balcony and exploded with a loud pop, spilling the confetti over the surprised and screaming audience. Of course, this made people race to see who could pop the second ball.

For the encore, Lewis introduced “Give a Little Love” as the song she “wrote for [her] friend Blake.” Sennett, Lewis’ ex-boyfriend, spent the entire performance looking at the ground, refusing to make eye contact with the audience. The second song of the encore was the fan favorite “Does He Love You?” which ended the night on a high, and much less awkward, note.

All in all, the three bands performed wonderfully. The show was incredibly entertaining, and made me want to run out and buy more CDs than I could possibly afford.

williamsk1@lasalle.edu