Saturday will mark the 16th year of Omaha’s MAHA Music Festival, and its second year in a new location at the Heartland of America Park in downtown Omaha.
MAHA regularly draws big names, like previous headliners Car Seat Headrest and Weezer. This year, UK indie rock band Wet Leg is the main act, with Omaha-founded indie folk-rock band Bright Eyes taking the stage just before them.
Frontmanned by Conor Oberst, Bright Eyes helped put Omaha’s indie music scene on the map when they began releasing music in the 1990s. Though the band has been a staple in the city for decades, it will be the first time it will perform at MAHA.
“I went to MAHA last year because I’m friends with this band Waxahatchee, so I went down to watch them,” Oberst said. “It was such an enjoyable thing, and I liked the new setup so much that, I think it was even that night, I was talking to someone… Like, ‘we should play this,’ said casually that night because it was so fun. And now it’s really happening. A year later, wishes come true.”
Most previous MAHA festivals were held at Stinson Park in the Aksarben neighborhood, and over the years, it developed into a multi-day event with multiple stages.
Citing financial issues, the festival took a year off to recoup in 2024. Since returning last summer, the festival has had a streamlined one-day, one-stage schedule at the newly renovated Heartland of America Park.
“It just feels better down there,” Oberst said. “I give a big thumbs up to this new location.”
Oberst said there’s always something special about playing to a hometown crowd – especially since many of Bright Eyes’ songs are “littered with Omaha and Nebraska references.”
“It’s a different experience playing in Omaha than any other place in the world, just because it’s my hometown and I see a lot of friends and family,” he said. “I can’t say it really affects the setlist, but I’m coming into it maybe with a slightly different state of mind than some other places. It just makes for a different experience – not necessarily better or worse. Just different.”
Bright Eyes is the biggest hometown act at MAHA this year, but the festival always brings in local talent to complement the headliners. The afternoon performances will kick off with Omaha native Carver Jones, who describes his music as “an eclectic mix of alternative music and R&B and rock and soul.”
Jones started writing songs after graduating from Millard North High School in 2021. While traveling the country in a van with friends, he bought a speaker and began performing on the street.
“We were in Oregon, California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Washington – just bouncing around everywhere,” Jones said. “Prior to that, I kind of just wanted to give the music thing a shot. But it was the fact of being out there and having real-life experience – whether that was meeting these people in some random desert in Arizona, or sleeping behind a Pizza Hut – it was just all these very, very singular experiences that would only happen if I was doing what I was doing. That’s really what inspired me to just have stories to tell and something to say.”
Though he lives in Nashville now, Jones said his experience growing up in Omaha continues to shape him as a person and a musician.
“I think that Omaha is a very underrated place,” he said. “As I’ve been out here doing the music thing, and people are like, ‘Where are you from?’ and I say, ‘Oh, I’m from Omaha, Nebraska.’ People either are like, ‘Where’s that?’ But I think everyone that has been to Omaha and experienced it always says, ‘Oh, Omaha is like one of the coolest places. Like, I love it. It’s so welcoming, and the culture is so cool.’”
“It’s always been a very important part of my story,” Jones said of Omaha.
Doors will open at noon on Saturday, and Jones will kick off the performances at 1 p.m. The lineup for the rest of the day is as follows:
- 2:15 p.m – David Nance and Mowed Sound
- 3:30 p.m. – Whitney
- 5 p.m. – Blondshell
- 6:30 p.m. – Killer Mike
- 8 p.m. – Bright Eyes
- 9:45 p.m. – Wet Leg
General admission tickets are available at mahafestival.com.