Streaky Bay council has announced Choirboys and British India as headline acts of the inaugural Streaky Sounds Music Festival in June.

Hosted at the Streaky Bay Recreation Reserve, Streaky Sounds Music Festival is a music event created in partnership with Revive the Regions with Music, a Quorn-based production company providing music festivals across regional South Australia post-COVID. It will be the first music festival in Streaky Bay since 2008.

“In facilitating the event, the council wanted to encourage people to come visit Streaky Bay during the winter, as well as providing locals the opportunity to attend a quality music event without leaving Streaky Bay,” Streaky Bay Mayor Travis Barber says.

Streaky Bay community development manager Jess Davis says they hope the event will help local businesses and community groups that suffered from COVID closures and restrictions, and attract new people to the region.

“We’re opening all the catering to local businesses or community groups to provide them with opportunities to raise some funds,” Jess says.

“They felt quite an impact over COVID. When there was no footy, no netball and no events, those groups lost a lot of opportunities to fundraise.”

The festival will present an all-Australian lineup, including numerous Eyre Peninsula acts, such as Jodi Martin, Joshy Willo, Sharon Moore and Bonkers, alongside South Australian acts Revel, Audio Reign and Caitlin Drew.

Bringing in national bands has been well received by locals.

“When we first started talking about having this music festival, a lot of the people in the community were thinking we were just looking at local artists, and then when we announced our two acts a lot of people couldn’t believe that they could go along and see them here in Streaky without having to go somewhere like Adelaide or Melbourne,” Jess says.

She says having internationally successful acts in Streaky Bay is “amazing”, and allowing local Eyre Peninsula artists to share the stage with them is “super exciting”.

Headliners of the festival, pub-rock band Choirboys have been a staple of the Australian rock music scene with their rock anthems ‘Run to Paradise’, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ and ‘Never Gonna Die’.

Formed in Sydney in the late 1970s, Choirboys have supported rock legends Deep Purple, Bon Jovi and Cold Chisel and worked with The Rolling Stones producer Brian McGee.

The band’s 1987 hit ‘Run to Paradise’ reached number three on the Australian music charts, appeared on the USA’s Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at no. 33 on the American Mainstream Rock charts.

Mainstays of the band, Mark Gable, Ian Hulme and Brett Williams will bring the Choirboys’ renowned rock ‘n’ roll live performance style to the Eyre Peninsula.

Melbourne indie-rock band British India has regularly featured in Triple J’s Hottest 100 since 2007, with their debut album Guillotine winning them an AIR award for Best New Group.

Their 2012 song ‘I Can Make You Love Me’ sold more than 70,000 copies to become a certified ARIA Platinum record.

In 2018, British India released their sixth studio album, Forgetting the Future, and have since played multiple sold out Australian tours.

The band, formed by four high school friends, will hit Streaky Bay following their Rolled Gold 2023 Australian Tour.

Families will be welcome at the festival with kid’s activities and food trucks available.

For more information and to purchase tickets, head to the website.