All year long, we welcome nationally and globally touring artists to our stage for Studio Milwaukee Sessions, sponsored by Ellenbecker Investment Group. If you want to be in the live audience for these VIP experiences, become a member today.
To fill up our performance space for a Studio Milwaukee Session, we need to lock in a core 88Nine artist (The Mountain Goats being a prime recent example). Turning that into an overflow crowd requires us to score an appearance from one of our “white whales” — someone we’ve been dying to welcome but haven’t because of factors well out of everyone’s control.
“Living almost literally on the other side of the planet” is one such factor, which is why there was an abundance of excitement when New Zealand band The Beths visited the day after one of the standout performances of Summerfest 2026.
Their all-timer of a show not only closed out the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard on the festival’s final Thursday, but it also was their last performance of a summer trip through North America — well, their last full performance anyway. The Beths generously joined us on an off day and found a few hundred fans eager for one more live dose of the quartet before they left our shores (at least temporarily … they’re back on the West Coast at the end of this month).
Between songs from their latest album, Straight Line Was a Lie, the band talked about what they planned to do with their little bit of time off — boat improvements and jazz side projects — and what sounded like a very memorable stop in Milwaukee.
The most heartwarming part of The Beths’ time in our city stemmed from a disastrous moment last September, when their gear was stolen from a van while on tour in Paris, including a guitar that Liz Stokes had been playing since the band’s inception. Finding a replacement proved tough, and that’s when a local angel stepped in.
“I played it for like 10 years in The Beths, and it became special because of that,” Stokes explained. “When it got stolen, I was on the lookout for another guitar, and he said he found the same kind of guitar on Reverb and got in touch and was like, ‘Do you want one?’ It was just so generous and kind.”
Positivity was all around throughout this entire Studio Milwaukee Session, and you can enjoy the broadcast version using the player at the top of the page. Feel free to dip back into all of our Summerfest sessions in the list below, and visit our archive for performances from the likes of Jeff Tweedy, Yard Act, Iron & Wine and more.
- Wednesday, June 17 — Micah Emrich
- Thursday, June 25 — The Mountain Goats
- Wednesday, July 1 — Gold Steps
- Thursday, July 2 — Jobi Riccio
- Friday, July 3 — The Beths
Studio MKE: The Beths set list
- “Straight Line Was a Lie”
- “Roundabout”
- “Metal”
- “Expert in a Dying Field” (non-broadcast performance)
