MNA/Leslie Amsterdam
Marquette Waterfront Festival
The 2014 Waterfront Festival featured the New Orleans Suspects.
The 36th Waterfront Festival won't be the FIRST event on the summer community festival calendar, but the annual bash in Yahara Place Park on Madison’s near east side held June 14 and 15, is one of the most anticipated due to its location along the shore of Lake Monona.
The festival includes all the hallmarks of great community gatherings: games for kids, unique vendors, food carts and restaurant stands, a healthy selection of beer, and of course a couple of live music stages featuring an eclectic mix of local acts combined with regional, national and even international performers.
Illustrating that are the four acts headlining the main stage: Gold Dust Women from Madison and Yuma Abe from Tokyo on Saturday; Gully Boys from Minneapolis and Miles Nielsen and the Rusted Hearts from Rockford on Sunday.
The Cottonwood Stage, located at the west end of the park, returns with a lineup of quieter, rootsier musicians.
Some highlights:
Gold Dust Women are a local all-women supergroup that nominally plays Fleetwood Mac songs, but often strays from that formula. They play the main stage on Saturday, June 14, at 4:45 pm.
Yuma Abe, the frontman of Tokyo band never young beach, has gone solo and will bring his “West Coast-inspired breezy pop” to the Lake Monona shore. Yuma combines the folk influences of Devendra Banhart, a collaborator, with the psychedelia of Haruomi Hosono, who has produced some of his work. This could be an opportunity to catch a global star on the rise.
Gully Boys are billed as “punk,” but like other Minneapolis bands assigned that term, the genre is merely a jumping-off point. Fuzzy guitar anthems prevail, punctuated by lyrics that ride along with their social justice activism.
Miles Nielsen and the Rusted Hearts are from Rockford, so of course Nielsen’s Cheap Trick dad Rick’s name appears in the second paragraph of every story about Miles. They deliver a danceable, head-nodding brand of roots rock that serves as the ideal capper for a June festival, after which summer will have officially arrived.
Isthmus is a sponsor of the Waterfront Festival.
2025 Marquette Waterfront Festival music schedule:
SATURDAY, JUNE 14
Main Stage
12:00: Bigtooth
1:30 : The Kissers
3:00: This Is Gary
4:45: Gold Dust Women
6:30: Yuma Abe
Cottonwood Stage
1:00: Chip Cruz
2:30: Peter Mulvey
4:00: Harmonious Wail
5:30: Tani Diakite & the Afrofunkstars
SUNDAY, JUNE 15
Main Stage
11:30: River Rats
12:00: Jimmy Sugarcane
1:30: Screamin' Cyn Cyn and the Pons
3:00: Ruen Brothers
4:45: Gully Boys
6:30: Miles Nielsen and The Rusted Hearts
Cottonwood Stage
1:00: Genevieve Heyward
2:30: Sean Michael Dargan Band
4:00: Sgt. Splendor-Kate Vargas and Erik McFadden
5:30: TAE and the Neighborly
