Most bands might be tempted to take a big break after dropping their biggest album to date and immediately embarking on a relentlessly energetic festival slate and a continent-hopping world tour that’s seen them skyrocketing throughout the global indie world.
But not Momma.
Instead of slowing down, the harmony-heavy pop-rock powerhouse led by riff-ripping duo Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman is getting a second (or third or fourth) wind and bringing their infectious, hook-loaded rock to the NMF Main Stage for what might be their highest-profile headlining slot yet.
As the first of the top-line names to be announced for this year’s fest, Momma are taking their place in the pantheon of past headliners like La Luz, Beach Fossils, and Illuminati Hotties, and likewise setting the tone for the kind of generational energy that’ll come to define the festival’s 18th year.
On the heels of a whirlwind trek that took the band from Japan to Australia and back home to the US all in just two weeks, we caught up with Friedman and Weingarten for an early glimpse into what kind of electricity we can expect surging from the stage come April.
“We like that kind of rawness and spontaneity,” Friedman said. “We definitely bring ourselves to the stage, like however we’re feeling, if we’re really in a groove or if we get really hyper beforehand, we really try to keep that there and be authentic to how we’re feeling on stage.”
It’s that kind of audience-feeding spirit that they’ve been honing and harnessing on stages around the world, and the kind of emotionally tuned focus that they injected more than ever before into 2025’s “Welcome to My Blue Sky,” their most candid and personal offering yet.
And that’s the same kind of personal connection that Momma are excited to feel coming back at them from the festival crowd.
“I can definitely tell that these songs are meaningful to people now,” said Weingarten. “Being able to look at people in the eyes and see rows of people that are singing at you and making eye contact and singing with them is, like, that’s the connection.”
Of course, there’s nothing like the top slot on a major festival stage to bring out the superstar side of even the most intimate and evolving performers, and that’s exactly the vibes that Momma are bringing with them to NMF.
“Sometimes at a festival, when it’s just so big and not everyone can see your facial expressions or whatever, you have to really play for the people in the back,” Weingarten said. “So on a big stage, like, Etta and I will try to walk up next to each other and play guitar together and it’s cool to really ham it up a little bit.”
With the trajectory they’ve been on over just the last few years, and with NMF set to propel them even further, Momma’s comfort on those bigger stages is growing by the day, and their weekend-capping, show-stopping stopover in Norman is already set to be both a crowning achievement and another giant leap upward.
“It feels awesome to be able to say that we can headline a festival,” Friedman said. “We’re people that are just really headstrong and we get really locked into a vision, and when we can see that people are really engaged, that just makes us more excited.”
