You decide: Where is SA’s best live music venue?
The SA Music Awards has listed the top five spots in the running for its coveted best live music venue. Read why each makes the list and take our poll to pick your favourite.
The SA Music Awards named five finalists for best live music venue with the winner to be crowned at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on October 28. We take a look at what makes each one a great spot to hear your favourite band.
UniBar ADL
UniBar sits in the University of Adelaide’s Union House and has been a stalwart in Adelaide’s live music scene since opening in 1975. It was part of the venue that hosted Adelaide’s first Big Day Out music festival in 1993 where the likes of Sonic Youth, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave and Exploding White Mice rocked a 40-degree day.
UniBar has rightly received flowers for its contributions to the live music scene and was inducted into the SA Music Hall of Fame in 2022. The bar has seen Aussie bands like Silverchair and Powderfinger grace the stage over the years, along with American pop-punk rockers Blink-182. Australian rock band You Am I marked the return of live music to the venue after Covid restrictions lifted, selling out the venue.
The bar is part of the General Admission Entertainment (GAE) portfolio, which in a former life was the licensee for Parklife, Soundwave and Future Music Festival. GAE co-directors Gareth Lewis and Aaron Sandow have seen the industry ebb and flow across the decade they’ve been booking gigs and programming festivals like Beer & BBQ. Speaking to CityMag in June, the duo says while the live music industry is “in desperate need of support”, it is stabilising and people have to value the gigs they go to and the production that goes into it.
The Austral
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The Austral Hotel dates back to 1898 and remains a must-stop on any East End pub crawl. The Rundle Street pub was the first in SA to have Cooper’s beer on tap and was a pivotal part of Adelaide’s band scene in the 80s and 90s, along with the Exeter, Crown & Anchor and the former Tivoli Hotel – all within walking distance of each other. Sadly, the pub’s live music offering was killed when apartment developments sprang up nearby in the 1990s.
The Austral had to put in a soundproof bunker over its once-thriving live music beer garden, a move music street press veteran and BSide Magazine editor Robert Dunstan told InDaily stopped live music because it “just wasn’t suitable”.
But in February, the beer garden turned 150-capacity band room was resurrected. The move was a joint effort from Austral publicans and GAE, and picked up programming just in time for the Crown & Anchor’s temporary closure in July, which moved its live music programming to the west end’s Ed Castle. Since the return, it’s hosted local bands like Jongo Bones and the Barefoot Bandits, Modern Relics, Sydney-based punk-rockers FANGZ and more.
The Scenic Hotel
Co-owner of The Scenic Hotel Jay Marinis told CityMag in late 2024 that the team’s ethos is about “supporting the community rather than taking from it”. This rings true for the venue’s farm-to-table dining offering to its live music programming. The front bar and beer garden host regular gigs at the no-pokies pub located on Old Norton Summit Road, about a 20-minute drive outside the city.
The views, the sounds, and the schnitties are worth the trip. They do their bit for local bands hosting Adelaide’s bigger fish, like Swapmeet, which swept the 2024 SA Music Awards, violinist and vocalist Thea Martin’s music project short snarl and indie experimental artists like Bjéar. They also host a mean dance party, with international DJs like Vancouver-based Jay Tripwire selling out a July gig in their winter marquee.
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Hindley Street Music Hall
Hindley Street Music Hall opened in September 2022 after a $6 million refurbishment of the site that used to be HQ Nightclub. Its owners are the combined forces of Five Four Entertainment, Secret Sounds and Live Nation, so it’s no surprise they’ve drawn big names to fill their moderate-sized venue.
The hall has a 1800-person capacity, which Five Four co-owner Craig Lock said filled a gap in the local scene – bigger than the Gov and smaller than Thebarton Theatre.
It has hosted English rockers The Kooks, Scottish rockers Primal Scream, pop outfit Belle and Sebastian, British rapper Dizzee Rascal and more touring artists. On the festival front, it was one of the venues hosting the esoteric experimental festival Unsound earlier this year. The Unsound drawcard, Velvet Underground legend John Cale, took to the stage, cementing the venue as a temporary home to Rock and Roll royalty.
Lion Arts Factory
Lion Arts Factory is a stalwart of the west end music scene and has taken out the SA Music Awards crown for Best Venue consecutively in 2019 and 2020. Before it was Lion Arts, it was Fowlers Live, and has hosted live music in the multi-storey heritage-listed building for more than 35 years.
It is another venue that is booked by Five Four Entertainment, it can fit about 500-550 punters in the main room, with a more intimate front bar and mezzanine space for up to 400.
Lion Arts gig guide has included Adelaide’s pop princess Aleksiah for her EP launch Cry About It, Aussie electronic duo Peking Duk and UK electronic band Rudimental.
It also was an UnSound venue, with CityMag’s sister site InReview calling out the stage managers for being “almost too good at their job” running the “mesmeric and highly percussive” opening night of the festival. The venue also took part in Illuminate’s SuperSonic festival with a special lineup curated by Adelaide’s Motez, including FUKHED, who has a firm grip on Australian club and dance scenes, and Memphis LK, a bold artist making strides in Australia’s new wave of femme voices in dance music.
