Live review: Midnight Oil burns bright at Mona Foma, first show of its final Resist tour
If the first concert of Midnight Oil’s last tour was indicative of the 18 dates to follow, the Sydney-born band is fighting against the laws of rock ’n’ roll nature by going out on top.
If the first concert of Midnight Oil’s last tour was indicative of the 18 dates to follow, the Sydney-born band is fighting against the laws of rock ’n’ roll nature by going out on top.
Few touring artists genuinely improve beyond their peak of commercial popularity; at best, they might maintain a strong competency while making a living from reprising songs written and released decades earlier.
Even fewer major acts continue to write and release vital work into their 60s, if they’re releasing new music at all.
Midnight Oil has taken a different path. Its last collection, The Makarrata Project – the quintet’s first new music in 18 years – topped the ARIA chart in late 2020 and led to a reconciliation-themed national tour about a year ago that sold 40,000 tickets.
This final tour – which began at Launceston’s Royal Park as part of Mona Foma festival – supports the band’s upcoming 15th album, Resist, out in mid-February.
Given the timing, there’s a natural inclination for the musicians to show the scope of their recorded work. They did that last Sunday – and not just the hits, either, although there were plenty.
Instead, an extraordinary two-hour set at Mona Foma skilfully walked the near-impossible line of satisfying diehard fans and casual listeners. The opener was aimed right at those hardcore fans: Progress, the first track from its 1985 EP Species Deceases, the release that preceded the band’s international breakthrough album, 1987’s Diesel and Dust. Then came Back on the Borderline, from the 1979 album Head Injuries.
While reaching back half a lifetime ago into the band’s discography, the resounding and ongoing impact of these songs is what truly impresses. This music was written and recorded by much younger men. As singer Peter Garrett acknowledged at one point between songs, they are no longer young – yet they each attacked their work on stage with vigour and precision.
Rob Hirst has the most demanding job in that regard, and his command of the drum kit – particularly during the second half of Only the Strong, where he controlled the rhythm like an orchestra conductor – remains outstanding.
Adam Ventoura is the newest member of the quintet, having joined following the death of long-serving bassist Bones Hillman in late 2020. He and Hirst have superb feel together, and with about a dozen shows with the band now under the belt, his presence – on his instrument and on backing vocals – is assured.
Its new material is thematically and musically linked to ideas the group first began writing about in the 1980s, yet pushes its sound forward while finding new sonic hooks to catch and hold the ear.
Recent singles Rising Seas and Tarkine – written about the effects of climate change, and the threat facing a wilderness area in northwest Tasmania, respectively – were performed with venomous intent. “It’s just down the road,” Garrett said after the latter track.
Leah Flanagan and Liz Stringer were superb as backing vocalists, with Stringer also joining in on acoustic guitar toward the set’s end. But for the first time in a long time at an Oils show there was no horn section, with guitarist-keyboardist Jim Moginie instead transposing some of those famous lines to his instruments.
Those melodies still work brilliantly, but the absence of brass did rob these songs of some of their punch. It also may explain why Power and the Passion (a near-constant presence at its live shows since 1982) was left out.
When this final tour ends in a few months, there will be a gaping void left since Midnight Oil reformed five years ago.
It’s not only the strength, depth and breadth of its substantial catalogue. It’s the fact the musicians have committed themselves to performing their songs live.
Sunday’s show exemplified the trusted infrastructure built around the band: mixing at outdoor venues is a challenge for even the most skilled technicians yet the sound was loud, clear and full from the first bars, with Ventoura’s bass filling the bottom end while Moginie and Martin Rotsey’s guitar interplay was locked in.
Perhaps most impressive was when six voices found microphones and the split in their harmonies could be clearly heard – on The Dead Heart, Forgotten Years and Beds Are Burning, for instance, everyone but Rotsey sang the choruses, and the overall effect was sublime. This was rock ’n’ roll at its very best, where talent and preparation met timing, setting and technical expertise to deliver a spectacle for the capacity crowd of 1400 masked fans – about 65 per cent of the venue’s usual limit, in line with state Covid restrictions – plus a few dozen more freeloaders peering over the fence out by the Tamar River.
This was also merely the first night of a national run that concludes in about three months.
You won’t find a more skilled and impressive rock band playing anywhere in the country right now, and after the final show in Sydney you might not get another chance. If you can, go.
The Resist tour continues in Launceston on Tuesday, followed by Hobart (Friday and Monday), before ending in Sydney (April 21). The writer travelled to Launceston as a guest of Mona Foma.
