The Tiger Lillies
Adelaide Festival
Her Majesty's Theatre, Adelaide
Thursday, March 5, 2026
Promoting their current album “Serenade from the Sewer”, British punk trio The Tiger Lillies come to Adelaide courtesy of the Adelaide Festival. It's a delight to see such a high quality act play in such a lovely setting (the revamped Maj is wonderful in the theatre part, but boy, is the downstairs section kinda shit and unwelcome-y or what?).
There is a lot of guff written about The Tiger Lillies, and since this is my first time seeing them, I'm going to add to it.
But first, if you've not seen them before, go. You simply must see them.
If you have seen them before, go again. Also, buy a handful of tickets, give them to friends, relatives, strangers. And go again and again.
Because: they're extremely good at what they do, they're involving, moving, entertaining, and super-real. Context: this talented mad bastard, Martyn Jacques, has been doing The Tiger Lillies with several equally talented mad bastards, So think - are you ready?
They have 44 LPs (two cassette-only). That's full studio albums. Three soundtracks. Six live CDs. I'll not include the collaborations and contributed songs, nor their appearances in numerous plays and shows, you get the idea by now. The fuckers just can't stop.
Some folk will mutter the word, "cabaret:, but no, it ain't. First, cabaret is nightclub or restaurant fare (pub, casino, wherever), with the punters often at those poxy round dining tables. Yes, I know what Wikipedia says, but fuck that, they're wrong. Think, I don't know, the opening drunken Bacchanale in “Das Boot” - that's cabaret. Mind you, the furniture takes a beating.
Many other folk will instantly say, “Oh, Brechtian, how very 1930s Berlin” (as if they were there, FFS) and perhaps they'll fish out a quote about Brecht's “alienation effect”, perhaps from Alannah Halay's website - that is, "encouraging the audience to look at the familiar in a new way: that is, to make the familiar unfamiliar or strange. When performing the alienation effect, the actor has to not only inhabit their character, but remember that they are simply an actor portraying that character. This duality, or double vision, has to come across during the actor’s performance."
Well, sure. To some large extent, that's what Tiger Lillies do. However ... close your eyes and squint and, if you can, pretend that the USA never existed ... and you have on stage a sort of mixture of English Music-Hall with European circus and street theatre (the performers do much in the way of clowning, rather than acting). If you like, English music-hall blues - without the USA's version.
Why do I say that? Well, it's the topics, and the self-conscious melancholia, frequently shot through with self-aware ridicule (check out the cover of their LP, 'Farm Yard Filth' (1997). If there's a criticism overall, it would be that most of the songs tonight were sung with the voice of the narrator with all the answers; the dispassionate viewer.
But that, I'm afraid, is to quibble quite unnecessarily.
That said. Front man Martyn Jacques (66) sings of the underworld he encountered as a young man in Finsbury Park (that's John Lydon territory) and Rupert Street, Soho. I must direct you to this interview, where he talks about those early years:
This period he spent perfecting his musicianship - accordion, ukulele (the smallest in the world, apparently) and piano. And also developing his distinctive falsetto.
Now, this voice of Jacques is quite stunning. Were his lyrics sung by Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen or Nick Cave, the effect would be completely different. Because of the higher register, we can deal with the subject matter more clearly and cleanly without wallowing in, or being overwhelmed by, our darker emotions.
Speaking of Cave. In 1986, The Bad Seeds' fourth LP, “Your Funeral, My Trial” (a rather pithy description of Nick's besieged state of mind at the time, I suppose) was released. It features "The Carny" - which I'm sure you all recall from the Wim Wenders film “Wings of Desire” (1987) (I'm sure...) See, Jacques formed The Tiger Lillies in 1989. The similarity of the musical style of 'The Carny' and The Tiger Lillies might of course be coincidental.
Then again, for all I know, Tom Waits LP “Swordfishtrombones” (1983) could easily be another inspiration.
Yeah, yeah, Brecht and Weill, and circus, and decadent Berlin. That too.
Here's Jacques on the “The Reviews Hub” website, just four years ago: "Weill and Brecht’s 1928 ‘play with music’ is one of Jacques’s earliest musical influences, since, as a young man, a neighbour gave him three old records, one of which was the original recording with Lotte Lenya as Low-Dive Jenny. “I listened to it all the time” says Jacques, “I thought it was wonderful”. Only later did he realise that Threepenny Opera was in itself a re-working of John Gay’s 18th century The Beggar’s Opera."
“There are very few shining beacons of originality” says Jacques, “I set out to make music that is uncharacterizable, that nobody knows where to place in a record shop. I’ve always tried really hard to sound different, but we are all inspired by what’s gone before. It’s bringing those influences together in a new way that creates something unique”.
Percussion is by Budi Butenop who has a sense of rhythm and timing which keeps the entire ensemble in check - match this with the kind of humour you expect from a real clown, but hardly ever see. His cv at the band's page makes eye-opening reading
Bass, musical saw, jaw harp and theremin are by Adrian Stout (I haven't seen a theremin played properly (as opposed to 'using' a theremin) since I last saw Adelaide musician Marduk Gault on-stage, it's a damned rarity).
The Tiger Lillies are gripping, involving, dark and beautiful, melancholy and uplifting. And the makeup? That just reflects our inner clown.
(The crowd, you ask? Well, mostly over 60. However, clutches of folk under 25, so there's hope for world yet.)
Go see them. If you can't see them, buy their music, buy their T-shirts.
PS: I am sure that “Serenade from the Sewer” does not reference Pauline Hanson.
