Rilo Kiley

Shepherd’s Bush Empire
November 19, 2007

by Joanna Orland

I wasn’t quite sure if I’d like Rilo Kiley since as a general rule I pretty much hate all female singers. And also for the fact that there was only one Rilo Kiley song that I knew of beforehand which is Troubadours… the best song ever, but totally different from any of their other stuff.

When frontwoman Jenny Lewis came out on stage, I realized right away that
I would enjoy their live set. With a strong stage presence, a visual similarity to Canadian popster Feist, a commanding fashion sense, and a strong voice, Jenny carried the band very well… with major support from the guitarist, 2 lovely female backup singers/random musicians and of course the rest of the band. The two supporting girls were particularily awesome. Not only did they play just about every instrument known to man, but their backup voices were done 20’s style which somehow managed to enhance Jenny’s more modern vocal style, thus creating a unique vocal styling.

In spite of my ranting adoration for Jenny Lewis, I think my favourite song of the evening was done by just the guitarist and the bassist as they played the ukelele and mandolin respectively. It might’ve been a uke and a banjo in retrospect.. can’t really remember such details… but anyway… with guitarboy singing a very old fashioned song while playing the uke, a hush fell over the crowd and me and Isla realized that this was the sweetest song we ever did hear.

Some of the band’s tunes stood out more than others, but enough of them
stood out to make me check out their mySpace page and listen to them again. Funnily enough, they didn’t grab me on their recorded tracks as much as they did live. This is a band to see live. It’s just special enough that it cannot be captured or replicated digitally. Except for Troubadours of course.. that is SUCH an awesome song!