Rilo Kiley's Aztec Theater Show Was a Love Letter to Growing Up and Letting Go

Seventeen years after their last live show, Rilo Kiley returned to the stage earlier this year for a reunion tour cheekily titled “Sometimes When You're On You’re Really Fucking On” Tour, borrowed from the lyrics of “Better Son/Daughter”

Rilo Kiley began as a two-piece between Lewis and Sennett, both former actors turned songwriters who once shared a romantic relationship before ending things in 2002. Their creative partnership outlasted their romance, but in 2008, the band called it quits, with Sennet telling the Los Angeles Daily Times that Kiley had “been around longer than we were actually making music.” Still, the songs endured. And judging by the sold-out crowd in San Antonio, so did the devotion.

The crowd was exactly who you’d expect: former indie-sleaze, twee millennials who once wore circle skirts, penny loafers, winged eyeliner, and colored tights, and whose style has not aged, but instead has grown more refined.

The band opened with “The Execution of All Things,” the title track from their 2002 breakout album, before launching into “Spectacular Views,” which pulled me back to being a teenager, wearing wingtip oxford shoes and a knit beret to my journalism class, where I first picked up a camera; reading On the Road for the first time; scrolling through grainy analog photos of mountains on Tumblr; and feeling like there was a whole world waiting just beyond all I ever knew. “It’s so fucking beautiful,” Jenny sang. I sang along, too, because it really fucking was.

There’s a kind of forgiveness in reminiscing about the wide-eyed optimism of youth.The messy beauty of self-discovery, remembering all the things you had wanted for yourself, empathizing with who you once were, and recognizing how hard it was to grow into who you’ve become.

“I Never” was transcendent. Lewis’s voice is still capable of disarming vulnerability. The song is an unflinching confession of longing and the fear of being seen too clearly, which, on a personal note, hits harder this time as a person who has always wanted to be someone’s wife but at my big old age is still afraid of intimacy.

Then came “It’s a Hit,” which once read as a cynical critique of George W.Bush’s politics, but now feels like an eerily prescient reckoning for a generation that lived through 9/11 and is now watching the current political shitstorm unfold.

Just when I thought the heaviness settled, they played “Does He Love You?” and shattered my PMSing heart all over again, reminding me how love and friendship intertwine and sometimes betray each other.

Some people have said that Rilo Kiley was the voice of a generation, but I don’t think I see it that way. Perhaps because I started listening to them at the tail end of their lifespan, but I don’t think they were quite mainstream enough for that. What I do know is that, for as long as i’ve listened to them, their songs have always balanced cynicism with compassion. And sure, sometimes I’m hard on myself, looking back at all the what-ifs and fuck-ups I’ve made since I was a teenage girl, but at least for me, last night was about rediscovering empathy, and looking back with tenderness instead of embarrassment.

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Pedro the Lion opened the night, standing mostly still in their set. It fit the mood. We’re older millennials now. We’ve survived enough to savor the stillness.

See photos from the show below: