I was reading this recent Filter interview with Britt Daniel and Jim Eno of Spoon where the mention of their Summerfest show last summer comes as a nice and welcomed surprise.

Incremental triumphs, I suppose. How have the live shows been in ’07?
Britt: They’ve been mostly good. I’m not gonna lie and say that every one was genius. In fact, it seems that every show our booking agent turns up for we completely blow; I don’t know why that is. Our recent shows in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver felt among the best shows we’ve ever done. We were able to have horns on a few songs, and we were doing some weird stuff like [Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’s] “The Ghost of You Lingers.”
Jim: The show that was a precursor to everything was Summerfest in Milwaukee a week before the record came out. It had leaked about two months before, and Milwaukee was an insane, madhouse crowd that was really excited about the new songs.

So it seems like the leak was in some ways beneficial.
Jim: I think so. It’s beneficial for anyone to have a leaked record if the record’s good. I feel we put out good records, but it does sort of blow the plan a little; it’s not like we’re really excited when it leaks.
Britt: I think the leaks just mean that there are a lot of people out there that really want to hear the thing.

Thanks for the kind words Jim, we liked the show too, it made our best concerts of 2007 list.

Milwaukee’s been getting some pretty nice indie praise of late, just last week Victoria Legrand of Beach House told Pitchfork about her favorite venue, The Pabst Theater!

>> Favorite Venue

VL: My favorite music venue is in Milwaukee. The Pabst Theater! It’s frickin’ amazing! The ceiling! I wanted to take pictures of it, but they turned the lights out at the end of the night and you couldn’t see it anymore. Besides the Great American Music Hall, I think it’s my favorite right now because of the way they treat you downstairs. They’ve got free pinball machines. And there’s a lady down there– I can’t remember her name, it’s so tragic– but they make you dinner. They make you fresh food. It was amazing, I didn’t expect it at all. It was really beautiful. The lobby was really beautiful. The people there were really nice, and the kids showed up.

AS: The Ladies’ Literary Club. I really like that one that Victoria said, the Pabst Theater, but this other one called the Ladies’ Literary Club. It’s in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s so cool. Blue carpet, kind of an old theatre set up.

Myspace: Spoon
MP3: Spoon – The Underdog
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Myspace: Beach House
MP3: Beach House – “Gila”