By: Jared Gudnason

September 23, 2025 

In 2017, two friends and I stood near the back of the main floor at St. Paul’s Palace Theatre. Unlike Sept. 16, 2025, Wilco was the headliner that evening. During an extended guitar solo, a woman in a black leather jacket and beret lightly stepped on my right toes.

“Sorry.”

“No problem,” I replied.

As the solo continued for well over four minutes and then wound down, I thought her face looked awfully familiar, even in the low light of the auditorium. When the song ended, I asked, “Excuse me, are you Jenny Lewis?”

“Yeah.”

We exchanged greetings, took a selfie, and went our separate ways.

Lewis is a musician deeply entwined with the independent scene for the past 20 years. Hailing from Southern California, you could argue she’s best known for founding Rilo Kiley in 1998. But that’s easily debatable. Alongside a five-album solo career, she’s collaborated with Ringo Starr, Vampire Weekend, Minneapolis’ own Cactus Blossoms, Elvis Costello and Brandon Flowers of The Killers. If that résumé isn’t impressive enough, she also appears on “Give Up”, the sole album by “The Postal Service”, featuring the single “Such Great Heights,” alongside Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. Released on Seattle’s Sub Pop Records, the original label of something called Nirvana, it remains one of the label’s best-selling albums, with more than 1 million copies sold.

Back at the Palace Theatre last Tuesday, Rilo Kiley headlined a sold-out show at the First Avenue-operated venue. Our group arrived a little after 8:30 and found great vantage points. They opened with “The Execution of All Things,” the title track from their 2002 sophomore album. Most of the set I came to hear was drawn from its follow-up, 2004’s “More Adventurous”. Songs performed included “It’s a Hit,” “Portions for Foxes,” “Ripchord,” the title track as the first encore, and the standout of the night, “I Never.”

A soul-pop ballad reminiscent of the ’60s, Lewis’ voice evokes a 2000s-era Dolly Parton. The song closed with sweeping string arrangements and dueling guitars, a sound that felt like Detroit filtered through London indie rock. I knew our paths wouldn’t cross that night. But having only seen Rilo Kiley three times total, and with Sept. 16 marking my first in 20 years, it was more than worth the wait.