A Savage look at Adelaide’s nightlife

The drunks and the dancers, petty crims and knocked-off cooks that populated Max Savage’s working life all helped inspire his new show Nobody Knows My Name.

Max Savage in Nobody Knows My Name at Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

THE beautiful thing about cabaret is that it can be whatever you want it to be.

It can be comic. It can be tragic. It can be an hour-long alt-country jazz symphony that illuminates the dark corners of Adelaide’s nocturnal culture.

Adelaide musician Max Savage, pictured below, has been gigging for years, but when he wasn’t performing on stage he was often working behind the bar, slinging drinks and keenly observing his surroundings.

The drunks and the dancers, petty crims and knocked-off cooks that populated Savage’s working life all helped inspire his new show Nobody Knows My Name, which runs for one night only in the Spiegeltent on June 16.

“Basically they gave us carte blanche to do whatever we want, provided it fits in the Spiegeltent – which ended my dream of performing in front of a 30-piece orchestra,” Savage laughs.

Max Savage in Nobody Knows My Name

“But this is something that I’ve been thinking about doing for six or seven years. It’s really exciting.”

Savage, best known for his rocking alt-country outfit Max Savage and the False Idols, has put together a cracking band for the Cab Fest venture, including guitarists Django Rowe and Tom Kneebone and drummer Kyrie Anderson. He says the show looks at the shift change that happens every night on the streets of Adelaide, when the day workers head home to the suburbs and the night people clock on.

“For years I worked in the bars and nightclubs of Hindley St,” Savage says.

“There’s a whole nocturnal world in Adelaide – or in any city – with its own ecosystem, flavour and culture.

“Each street operates in its own way, like boroughs in a medieval citadel.

“Hindley St has its own population and way of doing things, the East End, the South-West – they’re all different and they’re all fascinating.”

Savage says he believes Adelaide is “having a cultural moment” right now, with a more vibrant and sophisticated bar scene emerging and he wanted to capture that in his show.

“But at the same time we’ve also lost a lot that was important to people who grew up in Adelaide, so I want to acknowledge that too,” he says.

“The dancefloor at (now defunct West End club) Supermild is a significant part of our upbringing and we need to celebrate that.”

SEE: Max Savage, Nobody Knows My Name, The Famous Spiegeltent, June 16

Tickets:adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au