Illuminate goes Supersonic with West End music event
Supersonic, a new music event from Illuminate Adelaide, will close the winter festival with one night of live performances across seven West End locations.
Supersonic will feature 17 artists at West End venues including ACE Gallery, Ancient World, ILA, Jive, Lion Arts Factory, Nexus Arts and Mercury Cinema from 5pm to 5am on Saturday, July 19.
It will follow returning experimental festival Unsound on July 11 and 12, which will also leave its short-term home of Dom Polski and be hosted across Lion Arts Factory, Hindley Music Hall and Ancient World.
Supersonic and Unsound are set to revive Adelaide’s nightlife in a part of town that’s seen several music venue closures and record high vacancy rates since 2023.
“This is the kind of event we’ve wanted to build into the program for a while,” said Illuminate co-founders and creative directors, Rachael Azzopardi and Lee Cumberlidge.
“Something that amplifies the late-night energy of the city in collaboration with local venues and offers an electrifying program focused on Australian artists.”
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Across 12 hours, audiences can move between free and ticketed events offering live performances, DJ sets and film screenings, with venues within walking distance in the West End.
Local faces on the lineup include Motez, Frank Yamma, Hart Flayme, Hello Moto, Housing Boom Soundsystem, Kuiper, Input/Output, Nelya Valamanesh, Mark Valenzuela, Adam Ritchie, Noriko Tadano, Miles Dunne and Alycia Bennett.
The Lion Arts Factory portion will be curated by Motez, who last year curated AdeLOUD’s festival lineup and has featured in CityMag‘s Best New Music with his recent edit of Lola Young’s ‘Messy’ and November release ‘Light in the Sky’ featuring Lauren Ray.
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NSW-based FUKHED will join the Supersonic lineup, along with Victoria’s Plastiq, Emelyne and Memphis LK and Dameeela.
At ILA’s The Lab venue, musician Marcus Whale and performance/video artist Andrea Illes will present a three-hour performance that intertwines sound, dance and live-feed video.
The event will also feature a free film program at the Mercury called The Sound of Revolution, curated by Australian documentary filmmaker Shalom Almond.
Shalom directed Songs Inside, which will play as part of the program, about the power of rehabilitation for women in prison. The program also includes feature documentary Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow and Pop Ability, a story of The Sisters of Invention, the world’s first pop girl group with disabilities.
Illuminate Adelaide’s Supersonic is running from 5pm ’til 5am Saturday, July 19, across venues in the West End of the CBD.
This is Illuminate’s fifth year, running from July 2-20, with the full program including a drone show at Adelaide Oval, a Velvet Underground co-founder and a new Botanic Garden experience.