Midnight Oil call time on their five-year reunion with Resist album and tour in 2022

Midnight Oil wants to leave everyone asking one question when they farewell fans with one last Australian tour.

Kathy McCabe

@McCabeRadar

3 min read

November 26, 2021 - 3:00AM

News Corp Australia Network

Music

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Midnight Oil will close their five-year reunion chapter with their final tour of Australia in support of new record Resist.

Fulfilling their Power and the Passion adage of “it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees”, the band members want to pull the pin on extensive world touring while they are still fit and firing.

The tour will kick off in Newcastle in February with 14 big outdoor and arena shows on the initial schedule which sees The Oil playing their final farewell concert in their Sydney hometown on April 21.

Midnight Oil will unleash their power and passion on their final tour of Australia in 2022. Picture: AAP

“We all know time refuses to stand still for anyone but after many years together the band’s spirit is deep, the music and words are strong, and our ideas and actions as bold as we can make them,” frontman Peter Garrett said in a statement announcing the final tour.

“We’ve reached people in ways we never could have imagined. Our desire to create and speak out is undimmed.

“We hope everyone who hears this album and gets to one of the shows will come away charged up about the planet’s future, saying ‘why stop now?’. Having always tackled every tour like it’s the last – this time it actually will be.”

The Oils’ album Resist will be released in February. Picture: Supplied

Resist, which was introduced with the incendiary single Rising Seas ahead of the COP26 climate summit earlier this month, will be released in February and features the Oils’ final studio recordings with beloved bassist Bones Hillman.

Hillman died last November on the same weekend their First Nations collaboration The Makarrata Project debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA charts.

The Oils reunited in 2017 for the Great Circle world tour. Jim Moginie, Rob Hirst, Martin Rotsey, Garrett and Bones Hillman. Picture: NCA.

Before his passing, he urged his bandmates Garrett, Rob Hirst, Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey to continue with their record and tour plans, and they recruited Adam Ventoura to fill his role on their Makarrata Live tour of Australia earlier this year.

“We’ve played intensely physical gigs since our humble beginnings back in 1977 and we never want to take even the slightest risk of compromising that,” Moginie said.

“A lot has happened over the last five years. Much has been achieved and with the passing of Bones much has been lost, so it now feels like we’re at the end of a cycle.

The Oils will be bowing out of touring at the top of their game. Picture: supplied

“These will be sad and beautiful gigs but luckily we’re still capable of blowing the roof off any stage and that’s what we intend to do.

“You could call this a farewell tour, but Midnight Oil will still continue in some form or other as we’re brothers, family. We stand as one, dependent on each other and grateful in all the important ways that make great bands great.”

Midnight Oil reunited in 2017 for the Great Circle world tour, playing 77 sold-out shows in 16 countries.

The Oils played 77 sold-out shows in 16 countries on their reunion tour. Picture: Justin Kennedy

The bonhomie and bonding of that tour inspired them to head back into the studio for the first time in 18 years and they came out with 20 songs, which have been divided between last year’s The Makarrata Project and next year’s Resist.

Both Hirst and Rotsey paid tribute to the legion of diehard fans – and their kids – who have supported the chart-topping, take-no-prisoners band over the decades.

The Oils perform latest single Rising Seas on The Sound on Sunday. Picture: Supplied / Jess Gleeson

“Mostly, blinded by stage lights, I see the first two rows of a thousand gigs: Midnight Oil fans, pumping, jumping, singing louder than the band. But I don’t look back,” Hirst said.

The band insist this is not a definitive full-stop. Their Resist statement said they would be open to requests to perform or record for particular causes or significant moments.

“Each of the members will continue their own projects over the years ahead. They remain very open to recording new music together in future and supporting causes in which they believe but this will be their last tour,” they stated.