Midnight Oil reveals Indigenous artists to join band at WOMAD, plus another album on the way
Midnight Oil has named the First Nations artists who will join the band on stage at WOMADelaide – and Peter Garrett says it has another new album on the way.
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Indigenous artists from around the country will join Midnight Oil for its Makarrata Live concert at WOMADelaide before embarking on a national tour with the iconic rock band.
Singer-songwriters Alice Skye and Leah Flanagan, hip-hop rapper Tasman Keith, guitarist Dan Sultan and country star Troy Cassar-Daly will perform on songs from Midnight Oil’s new album The Makarrata Project.
Bunna Lawrie, singer of groundbreaking South Australian band Coloured Stone – which formed at the Koonibba Mission west of Ceduna in the late 1970s – will also join Midnight Oil on stage exclusively for the WOMADelaide show.
Oils frontman Peter Garrett said that, after recording The Makarrata Project with First Nations guest artists, the question arose of how and when to perform those songs live.
“We’re super excited – WOMAD is just such a natural fit for that,” Garrett said.
“It’s a terrific opportunity, partly because of some of the artists on the record, like Bunna Lawrie.”
The concert, at King Rodney Park on Monday, March 8, will include other classic tracks with First Nations themes from the band’s back catalogue.
Midnight Oil will also perform a separate concert of its greatest hits at WOMADelaide on the Saturday night, March 6.
Sydney bass player Adam Ventoura will tour with the band, after the death of its longtime bassist Bones Hillman from cancer last November.
Garrett said that, before Hillman’s death, Midnight Oil had recorded another album of new material which he expected to be released later this year.
“We’re still doing a classic Oils thing of figuring out what the title’s going to be,” he said. “Watch this space.”
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