Rhett Miller Steps Beyond His Old 97’s Niche

Rhett Miller is no quitter, not yet anyway. Which makes his new solo career less about discarding his band, Old 97’s, than about making a calculated move to finally get his fine, nervous, romantic songs to a wider pop audience.

“I’m in a band called Old 97’s,” he declared Tuesday during his show at the Troubadour, pointedly using the present tense. He knows the band is far from a spent force, with its last album, “Satellite Rides,” possibly its best. But despite a devoted following, Old 97’s’ sales are not the kind to brighten a label’s boardroom.

So Miller is poised to maybe move from college-radio troubadour to dorm-room pinup, one with more staying power than, say, Evan Dando. It’s a role that fit Miller easily at the Troubadour, where he mixed words of troubled romance with excited windmill strumming on his acoustic guitar.

“I believe in love, but it don’t believe in me,” he sang during the Old 97’s’ “Rollerskate Skinny.” His new songs cut just as deeply, both sad and joyous, infinitely wilder than those offered by such hit newcomers as folk-rock jazzbo John Mayer.

In Miller’s acoustic performance at Largo earlier this month, that came through in a rough, casual way, bolstered only briefly by the keyboards of Jon Brion, who produced Miller’s solo debut, “The Instigator.” With a full band on Tuesday, “Things That Disappear” and “Point Shirley” were fully realized pop that still revealed the bristling punk rocker at Miller’s core.

Fired up with nervous energy, Miller was best when anxious, sad and hopeful, drenched with sweat and bouncing on his heels, before signing off after nearly 90 minutes with a fitting Pete Townshend leap.