EarleFest draws record crowd in first year at Rohnert Park’s SOMO Village Event Center

The ninth annual EarleFest, the popular local celebration of rock, country, folk and more, took a big step up Saturday, drawing 2,000 people to its new venue at SOMO Village Event Center in Rohnert Park.

That tops the event’s highest attendance of 1,300 during its eight previous years at the Earle Baum Center for the Blind in Santa Rosa, where it was originally launched as a benefit to support the center’s programs.

The crowd of mostly baby boomers included newcomers to both EarleFest and SOMO (short for Sonoma Mountain), and the obvious attraction was the festival’s headliner, singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams.

The festival featured seven bands in all, and ran from early afternoon, when fans craved shade, to chilly evening, when Williams closed out the event with a fast-paced set that ran more than 90 minutes.

She performed songs from her last album, including “Doors of Heaven” and “Dust,” adapted from a poem by her late father, as well as “I Lost It,” from earlier in her career.

Williams won cheers from the crowd with “Foolishness,” a long litany of things she doesn’t need in her life, including racism, sexism, handguns and Donald Trump.

And she finished the show by leading the crowd in a sing-along rendition of “Keep on Rockin’ the Free World.”

During the earlier part of the day, highlights included a performance by the powerhouse rockabilly trio The Paladins.

The crowd favorite of the afternoon was the nine-piece band The Mavericks, who had people dancing with “Everything About You” from their new album, and lively renditions of Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” and Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.”

Dan Needham, CEO of the Earle Baum Center, said he was pleased with the switch to the new venue.

“The event had gotten larger, which we wanted, but we couldn’t fit that many people at our center,” Needham said. “We have a brand and a following. It’s become a sought-after event in the Americana genre.”

If the event’s producers - Second Octave and Notable Talent - wanted to build a bigger audience for the festival, they succeeded.

“It really is an interesting venue,” Cheryl Sweeney, 60, of Sonoma, said of SOMO during her first time at EarleFest Saturday. “I like it. You can get up nice and close.”

Staff Writer Dan Taylor can be reached at 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts