Cloverdale Friday Night Live

Every Friday evening from late May into early September, the Cloverdale Arts Alliance turns the town plaza into an open-air venue. The street fair and market set up first, with local vendors cooking savory and sweet, and then a different band takes the stage each week for the evening concert.

Admission is free. Beer and Sonoma County wine are poured by the glass at the beverage booth, and what you spend there goes back to the Arts Alliance, which presents the series and books the music.

Cloverdale sits at the northern end of Sonoma County wine country, and its Friday nights have the ease of a small town: neighbors greeting neighbors, children weaving through the crowd, and a headline band with the whole plaza to itself.

Make it the close of a day in the north county. Arrive as the market opens to graze the food stalls in the last of the light, find your place before the first song, and let the music carry you into the summer dark.