NiteTalk: Thievery Corporation's Eric Hilton Caught Rocking Eden Roc

There's nothing like walking into the lobby of one of Miami Beach's most legendary hotels on a Monday night and seeing it shake from floor to ceiling. Such was the case last night when Thievery Corporation and friends kicked out the jams at the increasingly-popping Eden Roc as a sorta pre-show throwdown for its concert with Massive Attack. Niteside's John Hood stepped outside with Thievery's Eric Hilton to get a quick what's what.

Welcome to Miami!
Thanks!

Do you always take over a venue before you take over a town?
No, we usually do after parties though. But this is one of the rare occasions where we had an off night and decided to turn everybody on.

You definitely did that. And now everybody's doubly amped about your Bayfront Park show with Massive Attack.
So are we. This is about midway into the tour, and Miami's always a great crowd.

How did the Massive Attack tour come about anyway? Our agent is their agent so she had a very good idea to do a double bill, which is working really well. Tickets sales are great. There's a big crowd, and they're loving it. Logistically there are some odd elements but we're still blowing it up!

I know TC's toured all over the world, but is there any place (besides Miami of course) where the crowds continue to be exceptional? Our most hard-connection markets are in Southern Europe, so Portugal, Greece, Spain -- when we go there it's incredible.

Did you ever play North Africa? Yes, in fact we played Morocco about six months ago.

Wow! That must've been fantastic!
Being there was amazing. But when you play in a place like Morocco or a lot of "Third World" countries you end up playing for the rich people in front and the poor people are in the back. And it would be really good if it were reversed.

Ah, and the poor folks are the ones jumping around. Exactly.

Well, at Bayfront I bet everybody is gonna be jumping around, no matter what their pay grade happens to be. Hey, it's Miami. That's what this city does, right?

Quite right!

 

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