Review: Nice Day To Go To The Club @ Port Noarlunga Football Club 28/02/26
Now in its fourth year, Nice Day To Go To The Club has firmly established itself as not only one of South Australia’s great events, but one of the country’s best live music festivals.
Words & Images Michael Lockheart
Image supplied
Nice Day To Go To The Club @ Port Noarlunga Football Club 28/02/26
What started as a grassroots punt between mates now feels like a minor miracle.
Nice Day To Go To The Club — the brainchild of Daybed Records founders Jack Stokes and Tom Redden — has somehow grown from a local showcase into a genuinely international punk stop-off, without losing the scrappy charm that made it work in the first place.
Four years in, and they’ve pulled it off again.
Sixteen bands. Two stages. No clashes. Cheap beer. A suburban footy oval on the Mid Coast transformed into a full-day collision of local heroes, interstate heavy-hitters and bona fide overseas names. It’s the kind of lineup that, on paper, probably shouldn’t fit on the turf of Port Noarlunga Football Club. And yet it does this perfectly.
By mid-afternoon, the place had a let loose, charged feeling about it…
Frenzee
Frenzee were exactly what you’d hope for and maybe a bit more. Abrasive, sure, but with hooks that sneak up on you. Vocalist Apollonia barely stayed on stage. Half the set was spent leaning into the front row or crowdsurfing straight over it, screaming back at the crowd like she was daring them to keep up. It didn’t feel performative. It felt unstoppable. The raging pit responded in kind.
Full Flower Moon Band
Full Flower Moon Band shifted the temperature. Babyshakes Dillon doesn’t need to move much, there’s something intense in her stare that does the legwork. Her vocals felt almost trapped inside the mix in this haunting way, like they were echoing down a tunnel, while the guitars just droned and swelled behind her. Chunky, hypnotic and heavy without being blunt.
Cosmic Psychos
Cosmic Psychos might be the least self-conscious band on earth. Tradie slacks, overalls, no fuss. And yet the songs are tight. Properly tight. There’s craft buried under the gruffness. For the duration of their set, The Bronx's tour manager, Boo, was literally on stage cooking sausages. Later they were distributed to the crowd. You couldn’t script something more Australian if you tried. After their set, the band just hung around drinking beers with punters like it was a Sunday session. No green room mystique. Just blokes at a footy club.
Lambrini Girls
Lambrini Girls felt like witnessing something on the rise. There’s real fury in Phoebe Lunny’s delivery, far from a theatrical anger, but sharp, pointed stuff. The drizzle started coming down during their set and somehow that made it better. The whole thing felt teetering but controlled. Chaos with intent.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Rolling Blackouts were the exhale. After hours of bruising punk, their set felt measured — melodic, restrained, almost gentle by comparison. You could feel the collective heart rate drop. It wasn’t a comedown in a bad way. It just felt like the right way to close it.
The Bronx
The Bronx were the benchmark though. Easily.
From the jump, they were locked in. ‘History’s Stranglers’, ‘The Unholy Hand’, ‘White Shadow’, ‘Knifeman’… no filler, no coasting. Matt Caughthran’s speeches about unity and the band’s 22-year run didn’t feel like stock tour lines. There’s something about the way they talk about Australia and Adelaide in particular that feels earned.
Ken Horne was on fire, ripping solos right at the lip of the stage. Fill in drummer David Hidalgo Jr. drove everything forward relentlessly. The pit during their set wasn’t just wild, it was joyous. That’s the difference and the standard for The Bronx live experience.
The real achievement, though, sits with Stokes and Redden.
It would’ve been easy for Nice Day to outgrow itself, to chase scale, to lose the intimacy, to iron out the weird edges that make it feel human. Instead, it still feels stitched into the southern suburbs. You’ve got international bands playing to a packed field while locals watch from deck chairs on the hill. You’ve got tour managers cooking sausages on stage. You’ve got punters running into band members at the bar ten minutes after their set.
That doesn’t happen by accident and could never be replicated deliberately.
There’s a clear curatorial thread running through the lineup each year, punk and garage rock in its many shades, old guard and new blood side by side. It reflects the Adelaide scene Stokes and Redden came up in: tight-knit, DIY, generous.
When Matt Caughthran from The Bronx spoke about unity and longevity, it felt aligned with what Nice Day has become. Not just a festival, but a gathering point. A reminder that South Australia’s music scene doesn’t need to look east for validation – it can bring the world here instead.
Four on the trot, and it still feels personal.
Want more pics of the gig? Check out our full photo gallery here.
