The Middle Waves Music Festival waters have been choppy at times, but they seem to be calming.

Kicking off in 2016, Middle Waves hosted local acts and national acts such as The Flaming Lips, Lizzo, MGMT, Joywave, and IDLES at Headwaters Park through 2018. 

The two-day festival was trimmed to three acts for a Night at The Philmore in 2019. 

In 2020, plans were for the festival to move to Electric Works, but it had to be canceled due to you-know-what after lining up Big Boi and The Cold War Kids. 

Following a two-year hiatus, the festival moved to Foellinger Theatre with Big Boi headlining as well as Young the Giant.

After the 2022 festival, Embassy Theatre obtained the event and hosted  Ripple: A Middle Waves Event at Parkview Field last year with national headliner Soccer Mommy.

In its second year under The Embassy umbrella, the festival returns to Parkview Field on Saturday, June 15, with national headliner Alvvays, as well as Pom Pom Squad, Houndmouth, Murder by Death, and Overlook.

Get in the zone

Gates open at 3 p.m. when you will enter through the south gate and get to enjoy four zones along the concourse: Art Zone, Creativity Zone, Game Zone, and Vendor Zone. 

At the Art Zone, local artists will create works, and you’ll also be able to create for yourself since there will be a glitter bar and items to make flower crowns and bracelets.

You will have the ability to try out instruments at the Creativity Zone, where there will also be a drum circle throughout the festivities. 

The Game Zone will have cornhole and a large Connect 4 game, while local vendors will be selling their wares at the Vendor Zone.

National attention

As for the music, Alvvays will be the biggest draw.

The indie pop quintet out of Toronto have been turning heads since debuting with 2014’s self-titled album, which received three nominations for a Juno Award in their home country. 

Alvvays’ follow-up, Antisocialites, garnered a Juno for Alternative Album of the Year as did 2022’s Blue Rev.

Blue Rev reached No. 3 on Billboard’s alternative chart on the strength of the single “Belinda Says,” which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance.

As for the indie rock band Pom Pom Squad, they’ll be stopping in Fort Wayne following stops in Chicago, Louisville, and Nashville, Tennessee.

Fronted by Mia Berrin, Pom Pom Squad mix grunge with pop elements, making for a unique experience. They debuted with 2017’s Ow, with their latest release being Death of a Cheerleader in 2021.

Also on the bill is Houndmouth out of New Albany, Indiana. The alternative blues band have been at it since 2011, releasing four albums and appearing on late-night shows with David Letterman and Conan O’Brien. They’ve gained traction by appearing at such festivals at Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza and will also be opening for The Avett Brothers, Trampled by Turtles, and The Head & The Heart this year.

Not what you think

Another Indiana band that will appear at Middle Waves is Murder by Death out of Bloomington, although they now call Louisville, Kentucky, home.

“We were just college kids,” frontman Adam Turla said about the group forming while attending Indiana University. “We were jamming in the public spaces of the dorm. We just wanted to do something creative. That was the goal. We started playing for fun and we had a couple bands and labels inviting us out to play out-of-town shows. We started traveling on the weekends to play gigs. 

“Eventually, we had some people pushing us to take it more serious and to make an album. It just became our entire lives. That started happening over 20 years ago and it changed my life. I never thought it would be something I did professionally. It was not a goal, necessarily. It just happened.”

While their name might suggest hardcore punk or metal, that’s not the case at all. 

“That’s what happens when you name your band when you’re 19,” Turla said.

The sextet is much more Americana with dark tones. 

It’s the relationship of darkness hidden in light that drives the band and led to their name, which comes from the 1976 comedy starring Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, and Truman Capote. 

“At the time, we were exploring how to write dark songs that weren’t heavy,” Turla said. “That’s kind of the idea of the band: How do you write something that explores the darkness of subjects, but not present it as industrial, goth, or metal? We were trying to find a new way to express those ideas.”

Along with 10 studio albums of originals, Murder by Death also have fun, encouraging fans to submit cover song ideas. If they contribute enough to their Kickstarter, those fans just might hear that cover on their series As You Wish, which has featured covers of Tom Petty’s “Running Down a Dream,” Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” and The Misfits’ “Some Kind of Hate.”

“It started as a fan thing where people were always messaging us, asking, ‘Hey, will you cover this song?’ What we did was say, ‘Hey, the only way this is going to happen is if we put together a place to do that.’

“Some of the songs, I don’t like the song, so we try to spin it or mix it to make it more interesting,” Turla said. “Some of them are by artists we’re not fans of. Some are by artists we love. Some are easy to do and some are really hard.”

And with 60 covers and 10 albums’ worth of originals to choose from, their set will be one you won’t want to miss.

“We try to make sure that if people make requests, we can do that,” Turla said. “We rehearse a ton of songs before tours so we can try to do as many requests as possible.”

Returning home

Not to be overlooked (I’m sorry) are Fort Wayne natives Overlook.

As they now reside together in Nashville, Tennessee, the quartet of vocalist/guitarist Carson Bull, bassist Sam Bellavance, guitarist Jim Haines, and drummer Colin Christenson will be making their second appearance at Middle Waves, having done so in 2022.

“It’s like an excuse to come back and see all the family and friends, but also a chance to share all the work we’ve been doing,” Christenson said of Middle Waves.

“It’s fun to come back and sort of get to show off and show people we’re still growing and doing cool things.”

They have indeed been busy since 2022.

After debuting with 2020’s Someway Somehow, the alternative rock outfit have been polishing their sound.

“When you’ve been a band for eight years, you become more of a hive mind,” Bull said. “That’s one thing people have said to us when they see us play. They’ll say, ‘You guys don’t look like you’re talking to each other at all. You don’t look at each other, but you play so tight together.’ You can’t fake that. That’s eight years of playing for hours and hours in a basement.”

While they’re all from Fort Wayne, they are from different areas, with Bellavance and Haines being Canterbury alums, while Christenson went to Homestead and Bull was at Carroll. However, what brought them all together was the little music shop on U.S. 30. 

“We were always hanging out there getting lessons (at Sweetwater Academy), going to Rock Camp, going to shows,” Christenson said. “We were in the same circle and just got closer and started jamming.”

After jamming a few years, the fun appeared to be over upon graduation.

“We essentially thought we were going to go about our lives and go to college,” Christenson said. “We really spread out for college. Carson and I came to Nashville and went to Belmont, Jim went to Berklee School of Music in Boston, and Sam went out to California to go to USC. 

“Then COVID happened and we all got back together. We were like, ‘In a world where we can’t go to school and get the full experience, why would we not just play music together like we had been.’ ”

And that’s what they’ve been doing ever since.

“We started re-attacking our sound and writing,” Christenson said. “We were playing three to four nights a week here in Nashville, just really putting in the 10,000 hours of performing. Constantly trying to make the best music we can.”

Rest assured, they are not the only ones in Nashville chasing a music dream. And they are well aware of that.

“It’s great because there’s already an infrastructure and a great community that we’re trying to join,” Christenson said. “In Fort Wayne, it was more do it yourself. There wasn’t really an alt rock scene going on there in like 2019 and 2020 when we were really trying to do stuff. 

“Here, everyone you meet is trying to do something along the same lines. People say it, but it’s true: If you go out to a bar on a Saturday night, you’re going to meet 10 people in 10 different bands. It’s a challenge to make yourself heard, but it’s also a blessing to have so many different people trying to get on bills and so many different venues that are trying to book.”

They’ve continued to put music out there, releasing the EP Shake It in November. 

They also released the single “My Woman” in May and have big plans for 2025 as they look to put their recently purchased van to good use.

“The goal right now is to build a platform so we can make a career out of this and keep pushing with the band,” Bellavance said.