Rilo Kiley @ The Complex 05.25.26

Almost exactly one year after their performance at Kilby Block Party in 2025, Rilo Kiley returned to Salt Lake City to bring their Sometimes When You’re On, You’re Really Fking On tour to The Complex. 

By now, it’s old news that Rilo Kiley has reunited 20 years after being darlings of the early 2000s indie scene, but what is still fresh is the emotional drama of the band’s sound. It brought back to life a repertoire that defined a bygone era for the crowd on the evening of Memorial Day 2026, the kickoff of summer.

I showed up less than an hour before doors opened, with my graduating senior and 15-year-old daughter and her friend in tow. As a chronic concert attendee, waiting in line outside a venue for a general-admission show is part of the experience. We chatted with an independent contractor from Colorado who worked her schedule to take blocks of time off, and this Rilo Kiley show was a stop on her way to Washington state to see Brandi Carlile at The Gorge. Once inside, with our barricade spots secured, we met another woman in her 40s with her teenage daughter from Idaho. Rilo Kiley provides the soundtrack for them when they need some comfort, they told me. After the show, they were making the three-hour drive home, likely continuing the sounds of the band in the car.

And that’s what makes Rilo Kiley so special now: It isn’t just “your parents’ music,” it’s music for those of us who were there in the beginning and new music lovers just finding their way. 

At Monday night’s show, the crowd was still mostly people in their 40s, so they trickled in during the two hours between doors opening and Jenny Lewis, Blake Sennett, Jason Boesel and Pierre “Duke” de Reeder taking the stage. But that casual approach to the impending show was not indicative of the energy of the crowd during their set. 

It only took a few notes — many times one chord or drum pattern — for song recognition to ripple through the audience with an eruption of cheers. Opening up the show with “The Execution of All Things” quickly established joyful energy for the next hour and 45 minutes. They packed the evening with an 18-song set, including a three-song encore, moving from song to song pausing mostly just to swap instruments. There was one small chat about Sennett’s gummy bears (the PG kind, Lewis promises) and Lewis needing a moment to collect herself after watching the latest episode of Euphoria (no spoilers). 

It could be argued that Jenny Lewis has been a cultural icon since the ’80s as a child actor, and she brought her expected style and swagger to the stage, making everything she touched work on her behalf. She worked the stage, delicately swinging a corded microphone, her pink heart polka dot skirt flipping from side to side. Throughout the evening, she flashed her coy smirk, reminding us that we’re all in this together. 

As a music lover in my 40s, this isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed a band reuniting or releasing a new album after a long break. Sometimes it’s fun, a time warp back to a simpler time of our youth. But the thing about Rilo Kiley is that while the songs were impactful when they were new in the early 2000s, when the band and its fans were in their 20s, those same songs are just as impactful 20 years later, but for different reasons. With more moments of triumph and life punching you right in the throat, a Rilo Kiley lyric can give you hope, provide relief or be an outlet for your rage in a brand new way. 

Take “With Arms Outstretched.” If there’s anything you learn as you get older, it’s that time is precious: “Now some days, they last longer than others / But this day by the lake went too fast / And if you want me, you better speak up, I won’t wait / So you better move fast. 

There’s hardly anything more cathartic than standing in a crowd of like-minded music lovers collectively raising our arms in harmony with Lewis: “I visit these mountains with frequency / And I stand here with my arms up”

Another concertgoer pointed to “Breakin’ Up.” She and her longtime partner always joked that if they got married, this would be the song to which they’d walk down the aisle to keep people on their toes and always make people laugh. After almost 21 years together, her partner died of a heart attack a few years ago, and this is the song that will always hurt the most in the best kind of way. 

The title of this tour is fitting: “Sometimes When You’re On, You’re Really Fking On.” When you’re young, just trying to figure out adulthood, “A Better Son/Daughter” really reflects that struggle. But when you’re in your 40s and beyond, the struggle might be more than that. It’s facing illness, death, divorce, abject failures or any of life’s shitty deals. This song was an anthem I played loud in the car in the years of particular struggle, not in my 20s, but later on in life: “Your ship may be coming in / You’re weak but not giving in to the cries and the wails of the valley below / And your ship may be coming in / You’re weak but not giving in / And you’ll fight it, / You’ll go out fighting all of them

So in 2026, it wasn’t a battle cry for finding my way as a real adult; it’s a mantra for showing up in both the life that I’ve created and the life that’s been dealt. And that will make Rilo Kiley last forever. 

Blake Sennett told the crowd that they’d just come from a festival, which was nice, but they were so happy to be here at The Complex. 

“We needed this,” he quipped. 

So did I. So did all of us.

Read more concert reviews happening in Salt Lake City:
Backstage with Michael Kozakov from Good Kid
Bob Moses and Cannons @ Union Event Center 04.27.2026

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