RECAP: All The Action From The 2025 SA Music Awards

It is a fine spring night, and the city of Adelaide is decked out in its best. Tasselled dresses the colour of morning marigolds, metallic eye shadow, tailored suits, vintage Dior Heels, bold lipstick. Colour and glamour abound – vibrant artistic expression to hint at the celebration of art to come.

This year’s SA Music Awards take place on the exalted grounds of the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Indie rock outfit Oscar The Wild kicks off South Australia’s biggest night in music with a deliciously cocky drum beat, to a sea of appreciatively bobbing heads. 

Their enjoyable grunge shot through with pop stylings initiates the audience into the sound of the state, before a gracious welcome to country by Cliffy ‘Tangku Munaitya' Wilson, a proud Kaurna, Narungga, Ngarrindjeri, Ngadjuri, and Arrente Man.

Then on to the stage waltz the night’s hosts: Adelaide-born radio presenter, DJ, and music-scene advocate Troy Sincock, in a delightful periwinkle suit, and award-winning Samoan-Australian music journalist and broadcaster Sosefina Fuamoli, in a silky bronze gown and majestically braided hair – both of whom lead the night with grace and humour. 

Fuamoli eases the crowd into the proceedings by making light of the fact that James Blunt, English singer-songwriter of You’re Beautiful fame, is also playing at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on this very night. “James Blunt, I’m here for you,” she jokes.

Esteemed speakers establish the calibre of the night. Andrea Michaels, MP For Arts, in a sequined frock and smart blazer, proclaims, “These awards really enforce our designation as the country’s only UNESCO City of Music.” 

John Glenn, Chair of non-for-profit organisation MusicSA, acknowledges that the art we are celebrating tonight is being created on Kaurna Land, and passionately discusses how the music created in South Australia responds to pressing issues such as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of living crisis, political uncertainty, and environmental catastrophe.

 It is, he acknowledges, MusicSA’s, and the industry at large’s, job to facilitate and uphold these worthy South Australian artists. The industry, he emphatically declares, must continue to receive investments in the right places. 

He sums up the intent of the night perfectly: “Tonight is about celebrating you… everyone who makes South Australian art what it is.” It is a night for artists – and for those who support and uphold and promote artists – to receive their much-deserved dues, and to cheer for their peers.

And so the announcements of award winners begin, and so the merry, tittering audience receives these announcements with joy. Dan Stewart, while accepting the first award of the night – for Best Cover Art for pop-punk two-piece puzzle TOWNS’ album sentimental slowdown – rushes breathlessly onto the stage, platinum hair streaming behind them.

“I tried using AI, and it fucking sucked,” they quipped while accepting their statuette. “We’re off to a great start,” Fuamoli joked in response, before winner after winner approaches the stage.

“There is so much talent in the room tonight, it’s amazing to be part of,” Sincock declares, before the lights dim, and then brighten again, and the next performance begins. Aboriginal Australian hip hop musician J-Milla reigns the stage with their infectious energy, leaping to and fro and beaming from beneath his wide-brimmed baseball cap while spitting verses. 

He back-flips off of the stage, and the crowd goes ear-splittingly wild, before a twenty-minute interval commences.

Experimental pop artist Lonelyspeck brings the proceedings back into motion – dreamy and ethereal all in black, commanding the audience alone, voice drifting above chest-thumping bass.

After their performance, text glitters across the screen: “Thank you for making Adelaide a globally recognised city of music.” It is, after all, the tenth anniversary of Adelaide’s designation as a UNESCO City Of Music.

As the People’s Choice awards and the Industry awards are presented by various heavyweights, a carousel of success and joyful acceptance takes place. Adelaide’s very own pop princess Aleksiah, and First Nations hip-hop collective DEM MOB swept the night, with four awards apiece.

Aleksiah, bedecked in snowy white on the stage, says into the mic while accepting her honours, “Never stop supporting local music.” Her giggly charm winds the crowd over easily. Ella Ion, winning the title of Best New Artist and the People’s Award for Folk, and accepting with profound grace and stature, imparts to the audience, “Anywhere I go in the world I always feel grateful for this space.” 

She also bestows a shoutout upon her mother, indicating just how important family – the family one is born with or the family one chooses – is to cultivating and supporting artistry. 

DEM MOB, who unfortunately could not be present on the night, send a spokesperson – who jokes about having to constantly zoom up and down the stage to receive the various accolades. He graces the stage with powerful words. When winning Best Regional Act, they say, “Powerful art can come from anywhere.”

Aleksiah continues to return to the stage, to collect the awards for Best Song for her track Clothes Off, Best Solo Artist, and Best Release for her EP Cry About It, along with the People’s Choice Pop Award. She jokes about Clothes Off being continuously played as she darts to the stage.

“Turn that shit off, damn,” she laughs, before offering up a touching shout out to the other “pop girlies” in Adelaide, lamenting that they are part of a genre that not enough people take seriously. She blows kisses to the audience while they cheer.

Sprawling folk collective Bromham close off the night with unbridled instrumental joy. Mimicking bull-fighting with their suit-jackets, dancing around, grapevining to the beat, accordions and all, they inject the room with a raucously cheerful energy. 

“We’ve got friends in all the right places,” lead vocalist Dave Thompson trills, before revellers, musicians, and industry members of all types head across the road to Adelaide’s beloved venue The Gov to continue the much-deserved celebrations well into the night.

Check out the full list of winners from the 2025 SA Music Awards here.