The Glass House is heaven for that concert-goer that lives with the A/C on, the windows down, and the lights off. It’s open and airy with enormous fans and strategically placed acoustic panels on a high, barn-like roof. Even the stupid low-rise bleachers add to the ambience. It felt like night at an outdoor concert in high school. In a good way. But air flow or no air flow, this audience would not have been sweating. Even in utter darkness I could make out the gleaming white bodies of superskinny 17-25 year olds, all weighing in at barely over 100 pounds. Lanky boys, pigtailed girls, dark jeans and tight t-shirts. No dancing. So, I thought, this is my induction to the indie rock scene-or something.

"Pictures of Success," one of many songs the band played off of their album, Take Offs and Landings, came in with a bouncing baseline and got heads in the crowd nodding in an understated, but committed way. Not worth fighting it, kids; this song emerges like a train, and its listener must give in. The sound expands and, at the end, disappears into the distance as smoothly as if it were on rails. The railroad simile is perhaps an appropriate one for a group obsessed with trains, planes, and automobiles. Machinery, circuitry, airplanes, highways, and death crop up again and again on the second album — not surprising when you’re writing out of L.A., yet the overall musical feeling is a growing-up-in-fields-of-tall-grass-and-sunshine vibe. Lewis’s vocals are childlike in their honesty, clarity, and hopefulness. The majority of chord progressions are simple and familiar; Rilo Kiley’s music feels instinctive, but fresh and flawless.

"Wires and Waves," also from their second album, was both mildly annoying in cadence and an unfortunate choice because of its untimely plane crash lyrics. Halfway through, Lewis began reaching for those high notes every time with a lip-twitch and a nose-scrunch. Gimmicky? Maybe. But not as gimmicky as the kids’ toys Rilo Kiley uses for added sound bytes. Still, even "Wires and Waves" boasts some straight-up brilliant lyrics: "How did you survive all those fires and floods/ how did you survive your insufferable friends/ it was the plough that broke the western plains/ and it’s just that my heart gets rejected by my veins." They slay me. I’m smitten.

"Science vs. Romance" broke up the set and opened up like a song from Grease with an extra dose of twang. Are we in a musical? Can’t be, because it’s good. Blake Sennett’s thin, slightly effeminate background vocals blended well with Lewis’s little Dear Diary voice.

Also included in the forty-minute set were "Go Ahead," "85," "Always," and "Plane Crash in C." Lewis, Sennett, and bass player Pierre de Reeder have been together since the band’s formation in 1999. The original drummer Dave Rock was recently replaced by some dude named "Johnny."

If you think you saw the lead singer’s face long before ‘99, you’re right. You may recognize the diminutive Lewis from her past life as a child starlet. She appeared as Shelley Long’s gymnast daughter in 1989’s Troop Beverly Hills and alongside Fred Savage in The Wizard that same year, as well as in countless other movies and TV series.