Midnight Oil reveal how they wrestle to keep their emotions in check on their final tour

Peter Garrett and Rob Hirst have revealed why the Resist tour will be their final run around Australia and the songs that matter to them to make political change.

Sydney rock band Midnight Oil at Coalcliff, NSW while filming a performance for The Sound. L-R: Martin Rotsey, Peter Garrett, Rob Hirst, Adam Ventoura, Jim Moginie. Picture: Jess Gleeson

As Midnight Oil release Resist and continue their final tour of Australia, Peter Garrett and Rob Hirst share why it is their swan song and why it matters.

Midnight Oil get angry on Resist. Picture: Remi Chauvin

The final Midnight Oil tour has begun ahead of the release of the Resist album. How were your first shows in Tasmania?

Peter Garrett: We’re starting to play some of the new ones, and I don’t think the emotion of it has quite caught up with us. And probably shouldn’t. Otherwise, we’ll all just get teary and fall apart and won’t be able to do the shows.

I think one reviewer did complain you took your big tin tank all the way there and didn’t play it Rob.

Rob Hirst: I’m quite glad we didn’t play Power and the Passion straight up because I’ve got to work myself up to that solo. At the beginning of the tour … it could be embarrassing.

Supplied Entertainment Midnight Oil Rob Hirst. Picture: Supplied / Tony Mott

Why did this have to be the last tour?

PG: I think the bottom line of it is the simple fact that there was a time when X sportsperson or X musician should not have been on the stage and us being the control freaks that we are, we’d like to decide that time. Am I going to be some big, lanky bald guy leaping around Madison Square Garden when I’m 74 or 75 with the lights flashing? No, I’m not.

RH: Not one person I’ve ever met believes it’s our final tour; everyone goes ‘Oh, this is one of those Farnsey final tours’. You can’t get away with “the final tour” these days. One of the main reasons we wanted to do this Resist tour is to honour (late bassist) Bones, his legacy and his great playing, not just on the Resist album, but ever since he joined in the late ’80s … all the great travel we did together and friendship and his amazing vocals, which were always perfect. You know, it’s a terrible loss for a band with a comrade like that. So even though this tour has been delayed for two years, we still wanted to do it to honour Bones and his legacy.

Peter Garrett giving it his all with Midnight Oil. Photo: Supplied / Tony Mott

Resist is a classic Midnight Oil album in terms of its themes – climate change, environmental protection, Australia’s treatment of refugees, the activist call to arms. Is there a song which you feel personally attached to?

RH: The song I wrote with Jim (Moginie) called Lost At Sea. I want the listener to be in one of those boats with desperate refugees coming from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, who survived the snakeheads (smugglers), the storms and the pirates and you can actually see the Western Australian coast and freedom … and a warship takes you to some tropical island where you languish for years and years having committed no crime. And then maybe you’re so ill you get so-called medevaced to a hotel in Melbourne where you languish for years and years, you still haven’t committed a crime. In fact, you you’ve got total rights as a refugee. I mean, it’s the most shameful f---ing policy in the world, and it’s got to end now.

PG: The Last Frontier because it’s slightly different from other parts of the record – I’m trying to sum up how I feel through another character. I’ve been doing a bit more songwriting since I’ve sort of disengaged from politics and activism and that was one I brought in. The other would be

We Are Not Afraid because the emotion behind it and what it’s trying to sum up is very much an expression of how both Midnight Oil feels, but also personally, how I would feel.

You’ve played a lot of gigs since reuniting for the Great Circle tour in 2017; there was the Makarratta Live tour last year somehow in the middle of the pandemic too. Has there been a particularly memorable one?

PG: Those Makarratta shows, particularly the last show we played down at Geelong. (First Nations artist) Alice Skye was appearing with us and it was her country. We had quite a lot of aunties and uncles and First Nations people that came to that show and who came back after to say thank you, that it had meant a great deal for them. And as well as that, we had the Geelong footy club and farmers and Oils fans from back in the day, all gather in this space. (PG pauses as he becomes visibly emotional) I’m pausing, partly because it’s emotional and also it’s difficult to express. But that gig … here’s a bit of someone’s life and here’s a bit of someone else’s experience, we’re all Australian and we bring our humanity together and we landed at this point in time. It’s quite special.

How will you maintain the rage after the Resist tour winds up later this year?

RH: I think we’re very fortunate to be in what Barry Humphries used to call the “yarts” because if you’re an author, playwright, filmmaker, musician, you leave a legacy which is there forever. There’s songs of ours from already 45, 50 years ago which are still well known, ready to be played. The songs will be there, the artwork will be there, if people want to look at the videos and live shows. it will all still be there, if they want to delve into what this band did. And yeah, who knows, we might just pop up occasionally live to see if we can rattle the cages.

Resist is released on February 18. For all resist tour details and tickets, midnightoil.com

Originally published as Midnight Oil reveal how they wrestle to keep their emotions in check on their final tour