Port Noarlunga festival’s birthday keeps SA scene alive
In what has been a rough year for festivals in SA, a grassroots gig that started on the back of a fruit truck on a footy oval is celebrating its fifth birthday. See the full lineup.
From humble beginnings on the back of a fruit truck in a local footy oval, annual Port Noarlunga music festival Nice Day To Go To The Club is defying the odds to deliver its fifth consecutive edition.
Curated by local record label Daybed Records, the festival is returning for the milestone with its “biggest lineup yet” featuring 16 acts including Queensland punk rock sensation The Chats, Adelaide heavy metal band Sacrifical Larynx, US rock group The Schizophonics, and Adelaide hip-hop group Funkoars.
Funkoars is reuniting for the first time in a decade after the band went “on hiatus” following the release of their 2016 single ‘Mad as Hell’ featuring Australian radio personality and former AFL player Ryan “Fitzy” Fitzgerald.
Sacrifical Larynx join the lineup after recently being awarded the People’s Choice Award for the Heavy category in the 2026 SA Music Awards this week.
The southern coast music festival is continuing amid the growing list of axed festivals announced in 2026. Event organisers for popular music festival Laneway — set to be headlined by Fontaines D.C. and The Hayley Williams Show next year — announced in August that it would be skipping Adelaide for its 2027 campaign.
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Adelaide music festival Harvest Rock took a year off in 2026, saying in a short statement that it would be taking a “fallow year”.
Nice Day To Go To The Club refuses to go down the same route. Four consecutive sold-out editions and a growing crowd of more than 3500 have the nationally recognised festival delivering its fifth year by “keeping it simple and doing things their own way”.
Daybed Records co-founders Tom Redden and Jack Stokes started out putting on 100-person gigs on “stages made of pallets” around the Mid Coast for their mates.
This all changed when Fitzy, a Port Noarlunga native, called Tom with a vision for a music festival that would pay homage to his childhood and raise funds for the local footy club: the Port Noarlunga Cockle Divers.
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“I have to be honest. When we started Nice Day, we obviously needed to raise money for our club to survive,” Fitzy says.
“But selfishly, I wanted my favourite bands to play on the footy oval that I grew up on.”
The festival has since called the Cockle Divers’ humble oval home, boasting many major acts over the span of its lifetime, including Melbourne punk rock band Cosmic Psychos, SA natives Bad Dreems and The Mark of Cain, and international bands like The Bronx and Lambrini Girls.
“Even with how the festival has grown, it feels the same as the first year,” Tom says.
“You are quite literally going to see DMA’s playing on the back of a truck and you’ll go to the bar and get served a beer by the under-14s footy coach. It’s so awesome.”
Nice Day To Go To The Club’s fifth birthday show will take place at Port Noarlunga Football Club on February 27, 2027.
Full Lineup:
- The Chats
- Miss Kaninna
- Funkoars – Reunion
- Frenzal Rhomb
- Luca Brasi
- The Pretty Littles
- Radium Dolls
- Swayze and the Ghosts
- Ethanol Blend
- GRUB
- Xiao Xiao
- Alien Nosejob
- The Schizophonics (USA)
- Sacrifical Larynx
- Wedding Motel
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