Peter Garrett’s swipe at Kevin Rudd during Brisbane show

PETER Garrett has used his first Brisbane show since leaving politics to take a swipe at his former leader Kevin Rudd’s UN ambitions.

Peter Garrett performing with the Alter Egos. Picture: Shea Walsh

YOU can take Peter Garrett out of politics, but you can’t take the politics out of Peter Garrett.

The once and future Midnight Oil frontman played Brisbane for the first time post-politics on Friday night, and remarked to the sellout Tivoli crowd: “This is a warmer reception than last time!”

He was referring to the occasion three years ago when then Queensland premier had blocked him from visiting Queensland schools as federal schools minister in an election year.

“Campbell Newman banned me from visiting Queensland!” he said, adding that the then premier had disregarded convention in doing so.

Referring to him as the “engineer”, Garrett said: “You’re talking about someone whose right wing has stopped him from being able to fly.”

Garrett is now touring his “accidental” solo album A Version of Now with backing band The Alter Egos, and will return to the stage with Midnight Oil next year for their first live shows since 2009.

While some in the crowd on Friday night may have expected a “Midnight Oil’s greatest hits” show – perhaps understandably, with fellow Oils member Martin Rotsey in The Alter Egos – the emphasis was on the new album, with all nine songs played, along with a handful of covers and two token Oils tunes.

Garrett has always had an uneasy relationship with Queensland, from the early days of Midnight Oil “playing a grimy little pub near Indooroopilly” when premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen sent around his infamous Special Branch, to his more recent times in the ministry of a Queensland prime minister.

“We dodged a bullet, now that (Kevin) Rudd’s not gonna be (UN) secretary-general,” he said.

“Now we just have to make sure Hillary (Clinton) gets up.”

Garrett, who Rudd demoted as environment minister after the home insulation fiasco, recently referred to the former prime minister as a megalomaniac, and decried his treatment of leadership rival Julia Gillard.

Rudd was likely one of the “glory hunters” and “twisted egos and ambitions” referred to on I’d Do It Again, Garrett’s post-political affirmation whose wah-wah guitar he described as the sound of a dugong off Townsville, “Martin’s (Rotsey) dugong”.

In a similar vein, It Still Matters proved a crowd favourite with its theme of clinging to “faint hope” amid the “selfish few’s… planet-smashing war”.

Neil Young met Australiana in set opener Kangaroo Tail, while the band slow-grooved along to the sultry Only One, one of two love songs from the new album.

Garrett relented on the call for Oils tunes – “we’re not bloody-minded about these things” – but it was the early obscure song Section 5 (Bus to Bondi) which captured the band’s post-punk beginnings.

“There’s gonna be a little more of that next year!” he said, referring to the Oils’ impending reunion.

But Garrett advised those who wanted to stick to the familiar classics: “Don’t get stuck in a rut. If you stop putting out you will die. And there are too many dead people walking around for my liking. There were a few of them at the Republican National Convention!”

Introducing a cover of Skyhooks’ Ego (Is Not a Dirty Word), Garrett hailed the power of self-belief, and how “sprinkles of encouragement” from that iconic ’70s band helped the Oils get ahead in their early days.

And he finally ditched the button-up shirt for a cover of Divinyls’ Back to Wall, which he dedicated to the late Chrissie Amphlett.

The third of four covers was of Kev Carmody, an indigenous Queenslander who Garrett lauded as “one of our greatest poets”.

And while Garrett had remarked on the staid nature of a seated venue, the penultimate song, Oils hit The Dead Heart, got the room to its feet in rocking style.

Set list: Kangaroo Tail, No Placebo, Only One, Ego (Is Not a Dirty Word), Section 5 (Bus to Bondi), Homecoming, Night & Day, Back to the Wall, Great White Shark, It Still Matters, I’d Do It Again, Tall Trees. Encore: Thou Shalt Not Steal, The Dead Heart, Free Your Mind.