Rilo Kiley shines in an evening of deep cuts at the Met, 17 years after its last Philly show

Rilo Kiley didn’t actually officially break up until the early 2010s, but the Los Angeles band fronted by Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett last released new music in 2007. It hadn’t played Philadelphia since a date the following year at the Electric Factory.

Lewis, in the interim, has had a quality solo career that stands on its own, reaching back to albums like Rabbit Fur Coat in 2007 and the self-descriptive Acid Tongue in 2008, and frequent Philly tour stops, including Met Philly dates in 2019 and 2023.

But Thursday’s reunion show at the Met Philly in North Philly was a special occasion, a long awaited chance for millennials to revel in generational nostalgia for sure, but also an opportunity to marvel at Lewis’ expertly crafted, narratively sophisticated Rilo Kiley songs that combine a rare vulnerability and a cutting edge.

To measure the influence that Lewis, and songs like the masterly case study in battling depression “A Better Son/Daughter,” has had on a younger wave of women skilled at writing emotionally frank songs, one needn’t have looked any farther than to fellow LA songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers and Haim.

Like Lewis, that sister band grew up in LA’s San Fernando Valley and happened to find itself four miles west of the Met at the Mann. It was a particularly busy Thursday in Philly, when other acclaimed indie acts like Mac DeMarco and Michael Gira’s Swans were also competing for attention with the Eagles’ NFL season opener.

» READ MORE: A Philly music week full of quandaries headlined by Haim, Rilo Kiley, the Pogues, and more

Sennett, who sang lead on two songs — “Ripchord,” from 2004’s More Adventurous, and “Dreamworld,” from 2007’s Under the Blacklight — during Thursday’s slow-building, strong-finishing 90-minute set, knew well enough to offer the intergenerational crowd, which was probably 70% female, a “Go Birds!” He also encouraged what turned out to be a wan “Fly, Eagles Fly” singalong before Lewis sang the slinky, sexy “Silver Lining.”

(The crowd was much more interested in vocally accompanying Lewis as she sang “It’s sixteen miles to the promised land, and I promise you, I’m doing the best I can,” on “With Arms Outstretched.”)

Lewis also filled out a little known Philly detail in her bio.

It’s well known that Lewis’ parents were a lounge act duo that gigged regularly in Las Vegas, and both she and Sennett got started as child actors before embarking on music careers. Lewis appeared in Jell-O and Barbie commercials and acted in Murder, She Wrote and Baywatch, and Sennett had roles in Boy Meets World and Salute Your Shorts.

But who knew that Lewis’ father, Eddie Gordon, grew up in South Philly? And that he learned to play harmonica at a music camp at a Philadelphia orphanage, which set him on a showbiz career that included stints with Johnny Puleo’s Harmonica Gang and Dave Doucette’s Stereomonics?

Lewis played harmonica on the night’s first encore, “More Adventurous” — a song partly inspired by Frank O’Hara’s poem “Meditations in an Emergency.” In a tender moment, she dedicated the song to her father, who she proudly said “could play Brahms on harmonica.”

The 19-song set list contained six songs each from More Adventurous and its predecessor, 2002’s The Execution Of All Things. Songs from both albums showed off the confident, varied moves of the band, which included bassist Pierre de Reeder and drummer Jason Boesel, plus touring guitarist and keyboard player Harrison Whitford.

“I Never,” with Lewis playing keyboards and showing off her soul singing chops, could have passed as an Etta James R&B classic. On “The Frug,” a delightful bop in which Lewis, who wore a dress that would have fit right in at a 1950s car hop, she showed off old school dance moves.

But beneath a candy-cane surface, the song revealed a searing core: “I can take my clothes off,” Lewis sang, but “I cannot fall in love.”

When it was released, Under The Blacklight was regarded as a letdown, a too-slick compromise in search of mainstream success. In retrospective, the songs from that album like the title track and “Close Call” were sinewy and effective, but the Execution and Adventurous tracks really made the argument for Rilo Kiley as one of the great bands of its era.

Three Adventurous songs showcased Lewis at the top of her game.

The powerful trio included the fraught, perspective-shifting love triangle “Does He Love You?,” room-rattling and Old Testament-referencing “Portions For Foxes,” and the sly “It’s a Hit,” whose timelessness is displayed in both its astute analysis of music industry indignities and its dual function as a protest song against a Republican president.

Rilo Kiley didn’t perform any new songs, nor did it announce plans to make new music. It would be a bonus if they did. But a night of hits and deep cuts was more than enough of a kick for fans who didn’t know if they’d ever get to see them again.

Natalie Bergman, the songwriter and bandleader who is one half of the duo Wild Belle, opened with an engaging set drawn from her 2021 album Mercy and the new My Home Is Not In This World. Both albums were released on Jack White’s Third Man Records and add a touch of gospel grace to sturdy folk-rock songs.