It’s a sunny afternoon in Sonoma County on Saturday, 7 June, and kind vibes abound at the SOMO Village Event Center on the outskirts of Rohnert Park, 40 miles north of San Francisco. The solar-powered venue is hosting Sonoma Wild, a single-day music festival and community gathering featuring Rising Appalachia as headliners. Led by sisters Chloe Smith and Leah Song, the group’s renowned blend of socially conscious Americana and metaphysical roots rock merges many traditional styles into a unique sound that always plays well in the Bay Area.
There’s also a handful of other bands, plus a slew of information booths and presentations, with a portion of the proceeds from the event benefiting participating regional nonprofits focused on various environmental and conservation causes. It pays to arrive early for the start of the event at 1:00 pm for the“Sound Immersion Experience”led by Danny Goldberg and Friends. The opportunity to relax in a field surrounded by giant gongs, singing bowls, and other chiming instruments generates a soul-soothing wave of vibrational tranquility. It’s an experience that feels like it recalibrates one’s chakras, setting an uplifting and upbeat tone for the day, much like a meditative massage for the psyche.
The back area of the outdoor space features the nonprofit tables, including the Sonoma Ecology Center, Sonoma Mountain Preservation, Wildlife Rescue Sonoma County, Russian Riverkeeper, and the regional anti-nuclear activism organization Tri-Valley CARES (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment). Founded by concerned neighbors of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the East Bay in 1983, the organization’s mission includes ending all nuclear weapons development and testing in the USA, abolishing nuclear weapons worldwide, and converting the Livermore Lab from nuclear weapons development to more socially beneficial and environmentally sound research.
Tri-Valley CARES is also part of the national grassroots “Back from the Brink” campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons, a threat that’s haunted humanity since the end of World War II. Many music fans undoubtedly prefer to leave such concerns behind when they’re at a festival, but the vibe here at Sonoma Wild, with Rising Appalachia in the house, is one of engagement. The music is not just an escape from this world gone mad, but also a way to generate awareness and solidarity about the problems society faces.
Broken Compass Bluegrass kick off the music at 2:00 pm with a sound that blends elements of blues and rock. The quartet’s cover of Railroad Earth’s “Bird in the House” scoreswith a hot solo from fiddler Mei Lin, who impresses further with her lead vocals on “Fairies & Lightning” from the group’s 2024 album, Through These Trees. Hot covers of the Grateful Dead‘s “Cumberland Blues” and “Cassidy” are crowd pleasers as well, with a soaring jam on “Cassidy” that feels great with the balmy breezes blowing through the venue.
Regional vendors are also on hand, and Art by Melrose stands out with a booth featuring vibrant, hand-crafted tie-dye clothing, located near the main stage. Proprietor Melissa Rose has become a vending fixture at festivals and events around California, providing eye-catching tie-dyes as well as a welcome bit of shade here in the early afternoon. Another standout local vendor is Parliament Brewing from Rohnert Park, pouring their delicious Kaleidoscope Hazy IPA. It’s a pleasant surprise when you can find fresh local beer at music venues these days, and Sonoma Wild scores big here. The full-bodied, juicy brew with a tangy bite is what a hazy IPA should look and taste like, and it sure hits the spot for a sunny Saturday afternoon of music.
Painted Mandolin are introduced as a group that Jerry Garcia would have loved, and it’s easy to see why when the acoustic quartet opens with a gorgeous version of the Beatles‘ “Dear Prudence”, featuring some of the extra psychedelic overtones from the Jerry Garcia Band version. The group dazzles with a stunning cover of Phish‘s “Sand”, which gets the dance crowd going with a stellar bluegrass arrangement of the song, while still maintaining the dark groove. Another song pays tribute to Wavy Gravy, who later spoke about creative activism and nonviolent resistance. More jams on Garcia favorites like “Reuben & Cherise” and “Don’t Let Go” are crowd pleasers too, as Sonoma Wild continues to deliver.
The food court offers more than standard venue fare, including locally sourced Mexican cuisine courtesy of Tacos Don Pepe from Sonoma County. When you see a taco truck grilling up blue corn tortillas, you know it’s legit, and the al pastor tacos hit the spot.
“Building Community Through Volunteerism”
The 5:00 pm hour features a talk from Rising Appalachia’s Chloe Smith and Leah Song, with the sisters reflecting on their history of volunteering, both in activism and community building. It’s a rare treat to catch the stars of a headlining band speak about their art and activism, as they begin with an a cappella performance of “Across the Blue Ridge Mountains” that showcases their majestic harmonies. “We sometimes call those old ballads the original Facebook,” Leah says half satirically. The topic soon turns to their challenging experience surviving Hurricane Helene (as ongoing residents of Asheville, North Carolina) and helping the town to rebound from the apocalyptic flooding that occurred last year.
Chloe notes that a surprising benefit of the storm was how she felt it brought their center back, as they’d been tiring of online activism. “Then this giant hurricane happened, and what we ended up doing was just playing music, on the ground for all these people in our town,” she explains.
Leah speaks of the group’s origins and how she and Chloe had the thought that if they sang together, they could attract more people to listen to their activist messages than if they were just advocating for a cause on the street. She describes how they went from their original hometown of Atlanta to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, for what they thought would be a brief stay of maybe two weeks, after being invited by friends to come and sing their songs to the people. “We stayed for about seven years,” Leah says, explaining how they decided that if they wanted to consider themselves “troubadours and connoisseurs of the traditions of the South”, then they needed to be in New Orleans.
Returning to recovery in Asheville, they note that they prefer not to be in a “prepper” mindset, but experiencing a natural disaster prompts them to think about it more. “But they also speak of how inspiring it was to see people rise to the occasion to help each other and think of songs they all know to sing together – ‘Our human spirit is pretty special’.” They also note that Rising Appalachia curated a compilation album on Bandcamp for Hurricane Helene relief, titled Drenched in Place, with all unreleased tracks benefiting relevant nonprofits. Released last December, Langhorne Slim‘s “WTF Is Going On” stands out as a track that resonates big time here in 2025.
Gone Gone Beyond hits the stage at 5:30, and vocalist Kat Factor asks an intriguing question – “Anybody out there ever met an alien? This song’s for all the Pleiadians out there.” Alluding to the concept of starseeds – people whose souls incarnated on Earth from other parts of the galaxy – suggests Factor herself might be such a being, which would fit with Gone Gone Beyond being described as “mesmerizing future folk”.
Factor’s voice is enchanting on “Another Earth”, while the new “Running Wild” picks up the energy nicely later in the set. She dedicates “Lucky Ones” to everyone present. “If you’re living and breathing right now, you’re one of ’em, don’t take life for granted, it can go at any time,” she says sincerely.
The crowd has been growing larger throughout the day, and a truly festive vibe is in play when Rising Appalachia hit the stage at 7:30. “Harmonize” is an early showcase for Smith and Song’s vocal chemistry, a song from 2019’s Leylines that has become a staple of the repertoire. The sisters are joined by multi-instrumentalists David Brown and Duncan Wickel, along with percussionist Biko Casini, to form a multidimensional quintet. “Indigo Dance” features a jazzy, bluesy vibe, as the ladies sing with a spoken word and hip-hop cadence.
“Make Magic” is another gem, introduced as being about the power of transmuting and moving energy, as the audience is implored to take the divisive energy in society and “steer it where you need it”. Leah and Chloe sing “What are we gonna do with the smoke and mirrors, make magic, make magic,” as a metaphysical vibration of collective positivity coalesces. Metal shows have mosh pits when the band cranks up the energy level, while a magic-making circle pit forms here as fans dance and mirror Leah and Chloe with shamanic gestures to conjure the magic vibes.
Another highlight occurs when Leah and Chloe speak of “old time music” that predates bluegrass as “the original trance music”. This intro leads into an upbeat jam that becomes “Love Her in the Mornin’”, one of the group’s most infectious tunes for a big dance party.
A revealing moment comes when Leah notes that it was band member David Brown who came up with the title for 2021’s The Lost Mystique of Being in the Know. She goes on to explain how the album came about when the group all got together for the first time in a year after the Covid-19 pandemic, starting with an improvisational round robin that became the opening track “Catalyst”. It’s a mystical song with an otherworldly vibe and rebellious tone that places Rising Appalachia at the forefront of any musical resistance against the Empire in the 2020s, which makes it another peak moment in the set.
“Speak Out” from Leylines continues with the theme of rebel resistance and activism as Leah and Chloe sing “Step up / Speak out / Show up / Be Loud.” It’s a zeitgeisty number in 2025, and it strikes a big, resonant chord here at Sonoma Wild. Special guest percussionist Joe Craven from Painted Mandolin joins the stage, introduced as someone Leah and Chloe played with at an Atlanta Celtic Christmas event way back when. That leads to a vibrantjam on “Agua de la Madre”, a single that Rising Appalachia released in 2024 shortly before Hurricane Helene, which they say was “both catharsis and oddly foretelling”.
Leah Song stars at the end with her charismatic vocals on “Downtown” from 2013’s Visions album, as she sings alluringly: “Walk with me, talk with me, downtown, I like the way you move, I like the way you groove.” The feeling is mutual as a collective groove occurs, spurred by Chloe on percussion, before Leah adds some endearing hip-hop freestyling that includes her affection for tiramisu.
It’s been a fabulous 90-minute set to cap a full day of music with an underlying tone of community activism and personal empowerment, making Sonoma Wild one of the most unique and fulfilling events of the year (kudos to Tapestry Productions). In a more sane world, Rising Appalachia would be filling arenas, but it’s great to be able to catch them in an intimate setting like this.
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