WORDS: Max Savage, Adelaide singer/songwriter and performer

Look we’ve all been around the block enough to know that there’s plenty to do in Adelaide with kids, especially on Father’s Day. In fact we’ve got a whole list of things to do in Adelaide with kids that dads might love to do with the fam on Father’s Day. Not to mention plenty of family friendly places to eat out that might be just right for the special day this year.

However, we’ve been looking for some things you might not have thought of to celebrate your dad’s day in 2022 in Adelaide. Things that are right up Dad’s alley.

South Aussie creative Max Savage has given us his top picks for a ripper Father’s Day in Adelaide 2022 straight from the Father’s mouth!

Dad Blues III

Sold out in 2018 and 2019, Dad Blues is a chance to hear great music played by a great band in a great venue with some pretty excellent food and drink to get you through. It’ll be done by six, so you can be home for tea if you need to, and kids are welcome.

After a few years of social distance, I can’t wait to see eight-month-olds with earmuffs and eighty-year-olds with walking sticks and just about everyone in between share a musical moment together.

This year’s event moves to the refurbished Lion Arts Factory for the first time and features local chanteuse par excellence, Carla Lippis, and perennial favourites, Hana and Jessie-Lee. There’ll be delicious pizza and beer and wine a plenty. For us it’s a chance to play the kind of music we love with all of our friends – I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than that really.

Tickets are here. Free entry for children under 15!

An Akubra from the Hahndorf Leather Shop

 I worked here on and off for four years when I was at uni and there’s few places that are as disarmingly off-kilter and unrelentingly welcoming as the Hahndorf Leather Shop.

There’s a warm fire, even in summer, there’s a glass of port on arrival and a spectacular playlist of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams and Bonnie Raitt to keep you company. I’ve used one of their belts to tow a two-tonne forklift out of mud before and everything there is made with the love, care and attention usually reserved for a significant family meal.

The shop stocks a range of hats and head gear, but Akubras really are the Rolls Royce of millinery and if your dad’s been getting around in a McKee’s Auto Electrical bucket hat or a stained 2018 Brisbane Commonwealth Games baseball cap for the last couple of years, maybe it’s time for an upgrade.

It’s a warren of a shop and I have fond memories of exploring it as a child. Kids will love the rabbits (and, given the inherent nature of rabbits, often baby rabbits) at the back of the shop too.

A black and tan at the Grace Emily Hotel

We’ll technically be out of stout weather by September, but there’s something intrinsically therapeutic and unremittingly satisfying about sitting at a front bar, knocking back a dark beer and shooting the breeze. The Grace Emily is the city’s most private public bar where you can nestle into a dark nook and have a real conversation without the pressure of plasma screens, fake green walls, tropical craft beers or an adjacent 21st for someone called Shennessy (double n, double s.)

There’s a reason they call them quiet ones and maybe it’s about time you sat down and had a few of them with your old man.

Go record shopping at Wolfie’s

 It is salient to recognise that, for many of us, our dads had an outsized influence in the type of music we listen to and bear substantial responsibility for our early exposure to the Travelling Wilburys, Tom Petty and ‘The Very Best of Creedence’.

Wolfie’s is a pristine wonderland of old-school electronics, band t-shirts and bucket list vinyl. Maybe this year is the year you make it up to your dad for ruining ‘Another Side of Bob Dylan’ when you were trying to scratch along to ‘Pardon Me’ during your Incubus phase? While you may never be forgiven for losing ‘Exile on Main Street’ at a party or trying to turn Leo Kotke’s ‘Armadillo’ into Instagram style share house wall art circa 2011, this year could be the year you start rebuilding musical bridges with your significant paternal figure.

If you have small-ish people with you this could be an exceptional moment to impart some musical wisdom. The first record I ever bought was ‘Go Tell It On The Mountain’ by Nana Mouskouri and the first CD I ever bought was the Spice Girls. I put this down to a lack of appropriate parental guidance. Who knows the lasting damage these early, misguided purchases have done? Take this opportune moment to shape your kids musical futures by steering them towards the soul and blues section of the store.

A trundle in the Hills

Spring is an outrageously beautiful time in the hills and on a day that’s hell bent on commerce, you can actually see koalas, kookaburras, black cockatoos, orchids and kangaroos in abundance, free of charge, without needing to enlist the services of AfterPay or waiting for postage.

Morialta and Belair both have excellent playgrounds if you have little people in tow whilst only slightly further afield, Cleland and Onkaparinga both have some really exceptional walks. Black Hill is also a cracker of a wander so maybe see if your dad wants to bust out that new Akubra before you head into the show?

Go to a historic mine

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a child will become inexplicably fascinated by historic mine tailings. I can’t explain this. Maybe scientists are working on it: Maybe it’s beyond science. Either way, there are some cracker mine tailings, a stone’s throw from the city that are rich in history and quite beautiful. Prince amongst these is Jupiter Creek goldmine, which has the added bonus of a real mine shaft you can safely walk through so make sure you bring a torch and candles.

Cook pancakes and dance…

…around the living room blasting The Eurythmics or Cher or Paul Simon or Dave Matthews or Youssou Ndour or Fat Freddy’s Drop or whatever.

Yes. I am aware you could leave the house and go out for breakfast. You could put on a shirt, jump in the car and go to a café with a name that makes no sense. You could eat a disappointing rosti. You could discover that the only remaining newspaper has been gutted of all the interesting bits and all you’re left with are electronics catalogues and the social pages. I understand that you could do this.

Or you could just cook pancakes. At home. In your pyjamas. Prime that percolator and let it run just a little bit too long. Put some music on and dance around the living room. If you have little people in the house, you could sing into the broom. ‘Electric Blue’ by Icehouse is excellent for this. Beethoven and Big Mama Thornton are also perfectly acceptable. You could hold your kids upside down whilst you sing along to the album ‘Full Moon Fever’ by Tom Petty.

You could microwave your second cup of coffee. You could sit in the sun and look out over the garden and pretend to read a dog-eared Peter Temple paperback. Make a list with a sharp pencil or sketch some plan on the back of an envelope with a biro not out of any kind of necessity but for the pleasure of list-making and stationary.

You could put on Radio National and shuffle about the shed in your Ugg boots with a cup of tea you’ll never drink. You could plane something. You could put a curry on.

Check out Max Savage in Dad Blues III

Event: Dad Blues III

Who: Max Savage, Carla Lippis and Hana & Jessie-Lee

Venue: Lion Arts Factory

When: Sunday 4 September, from 3pm

Tickets: Moshtix