RocKwiz Salutes Adelaide was an exciting night of music, trivia and fun

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RocKwiz Salutes Adelaide was a night of high energy, tight competition and all-round Adelaide music trivia and fun at Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023.

Since Julia Zemiro’s tenure as Artistic Director of Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2019 and 2020, a live version of the RocKwiz show has featured in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival program. RocKwiz Salutes Adelaide follows RocKwiz Salutes The Rock Musical in 2019, RocKwiz Salutes Eurovision in 2021 and RocKwiz LIVE! in 2022.

For those unfamiliar with RocKwiz, it was a popular music trivia TV show that screened on SBS from 2005 to 2016 with more than 180 episodes produced. There are two teams of three, made up of a mix of audience members and special guests. The trivia is in the form of questions related to music across different categories – a personal favourite is misheard lyrics – “I’ve done all the dumplings” means I will never hear that Paul Kelly song the same way ever again.

When we arrived at the Adelaide Festival Theatre before the show, Brian Nankervis was already building excitement and rounding up potential contestants for the night. A few quick rounds of questions and answers narrowed down the contestants to 12 who were then narrowed down to 3 in front of the audience at the beginning of the RocKwiz Salutes Adelaide show.

The fantastique Julia Zemiro and larger than life Brian Nankervis led proceedings backed with the wonderful RocKwiz Orkestra. As always there are special guests and last night they were Jessica Hitchcock, David Campbell, John Schumann, all of whom gave strong performances in both the quiz when singing songs from Adelaide musicians live on stage.

John Schumann of Aussie band Redgum performed “I was only 19” which is perhaps one of the band’s best known songs. David Campbell performed Paul Kelly’s “Adelaide”. A special mention must be given to Jessica Hitchcock, who was especially impressive and displayed a powerful and beautiful voice when she performed Sia’s “Chandelier”. She left the audience in awe.

Adelaide icon Willsy also appeared on the RocKwiz Salutes Adelaide contestant panel on the Adelaide Festival Centre stage straight from her performance at Adelaide Tonight which is also part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival program. Later in the show, John Schumann was swapped out for Alex Sinclair, the Executive Producer of Adelaide Cabaret Festival. It was great to see her front and centre (literally).

As always, contestants are asked what the first concert they attended was. David Campbell amused audiences saying “you know my first concert”. He is of course the son of Aussie and Adelaide rock legend Jimmy Barnes so the first concert he attended was no doubt his Dad’s.

The contestants rounded up in the foyer displayed an impressive knowledge of South Australian music. In particular the young Victor, who at only 31 surprised everyone on stage with his more historical knowledge. His secret weapon: today, he manages The Masters Apprentices band.

For anyone who loves a bit of trivia, live music and comedy, you’ll love RocKwiz LIVE!. If you enjoyed watching it on TV, then you’d love the live show even more. They’re doing another one in August, it will be RocKwiz Salutes Mushroom 50 for the 50^th anniversary of the Australian record label Mushroom Records. Just as RocKwiz Salutes Adelaide featured questions and music of exclusively Adelaide musicians, the Mushroom 50 show will honour its massive catalogue of Australian artists.

If RocKwiz LIVE! comes to your city, we strongly recommend you go see it. It’s a night of great fun and you might even learn a thing or two along the way!