Shank Hall, Milwaukee

Tucked into Milwaukee’s East Side, Shank Hall is a storied music venue with a capacity of 300 and a legacy that’s bigger than its footprint. Its name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the fictional Milwaukee club featured in the cult classic mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap-but unlike its cinematic namesake, this Shank Hall exists, amps up to 11, and has been rocking since 1989.

The building’s story begins in the 1930s as the Farwell Avenue Garage, a place to store and fix motor vehicles. By the 1940s, it was distributing Capitol Records albums, making it an early stop in Milwaukee’s music pipeline. Through the decades, it transformed-from The Barn in the late '60s, which hosted blues acts, to Teddy’s disco in the '70s, and later a comedy club called The Funny Bone.

The real turning point came in 1989 when promoter Peter Jest rented the space and launched Shank Hall as a live music venue. The first act? A Milwaukee cover band named Java. Jest bought the building in 1999, but not before surviving a fire in 1992 and rebuilding it with its current 300-person capacity.

Since then, the venue has welcomed names like No Doubt, The Smashing Pumpkins, Jewel, and Sarah McLachlan, not to mention some wild stories-like the time Corey Feldman knocked out a tooth mid-show or Kiefer Sutherland’s surprise gigs in 2016 and 2019.

Housed in a low-slung brick building with rock 'n' roll scars and history embedded in its walls, Shank Hall stands as a beloved, no-frills mecca for live music in Milwaukee-where the past echoes through the amps and the stage is always set for the next memorable moment.