Almanac Music: A letter of thanks to Midnight Oil (one for the planet)

“I know – that the sunset empire shudders and shakes
And I know there’s a floodgate and a raging river
And I say, see the silence of the ribbons of iron and steel
And I say, hear the punch drunk huddle as they drive on hammer and steel”
Midnight Oil, Sometimes

Dear Midnight Oil,

I need to thank you.

School holidays, Easter. We’re at a caravan park by the Murray. Enormous river red gums frame us, frame the river. Living history. I’ll guess I’m 12 years old and I’ll guess this is Echuca, 1987.

Once again I’m in a caravan park toilet block for a shower. But never before have I been part of a random toilet block shower singalong with people I’ve neither met nor seen. “How can we dance when our earth is turning? How do we sleep when our beds are burning?”

Midnight Oil, you run through the back of this country like… like hope. Like spinifex. Like anger. Like the wind. Like piss-taking. Like fierce, flaming indignation. Like joy. Midnight Oil, you reflect, capture, power and give voice to Australia like eucalypts. Like resistance. Your jangly rhythm, your artful beat, your distinctive sound an unmistakable shared spirit. Your collective.

But all of that is ahead of me as I stand with shampoo in my eyes in the Echuca shower block in 1987. I know it now. And I need to thank you Oils.

First CD: Blue Sky Mining, Midnight Oil

First concert: Blue Sky Mining, Midnight Oil

 

Before Echuca, first term 1987, I’m a fresh Year 7 at the local high school. Nervous. Shy. No more primary school. Students here have beards, breasts – sometimes both. Deep voices and hormones. And there is no school uniform. An older Danny Zuko character announces himself, carves through the lunchtime crowd wearing nothing but a tiny pair of royal blue footy shorts and a white singlet top: Midnight Oil barcode 10-1.

Year 9 and I’m off to that first concert at the Melbourne tennis centre. At school (a different school now), I learn about something called the greenhouse effect. It is 1989.

“Rage” screens wild footage of a guerrilla raid gig from New York City. There are you Oils, wheeling around – roaring – on the back of a flatbed truck (what?!?), in New York, New York. You’re parked outside the Exxon building (WHOAH!). Headquarters of petrochemical giant Exxon. In response to the Exxon Valdez tanker spill that dropped catastrophic amounts of oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska. And for which the company refused to accept responsibility.

“If you’ve been trapped in your building all morning with a window that never opens, come and stand under this tree and you’ll see what this argument is all about,” says P Garrett. And you tear into “Progress.” You sing “River Runs Red.” Look at you! Right there! You cover “Instant Karma!” From half a world away, I feel like cheering. That’s my Oils.

I’m awake. You have me. And now I spend the early 90s chasing your back-catalogue. And it’s about the music. The words too, of course. Messages are huge: indigenous rights, disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, our environment – my goodness. But then, without the music they’re just words. (Or is it without the words it’s just music?)

Stumbling upon the “Bird Noises” EP in JB Hi-Fi, Heidelberg, is a quiet suburban thrill.

In 1995 I collect my own closed head injury thanks to being a passenger in a single car rollover out north of Tennant Creek. We’d taken “Diesel & Dust” with us on that trip – in the days when you needed to own music rather than simply rent it on demand. And the live “Scream in blue!”

These days the “Head Injuries” album holds a totemic place.

It’s the late 90s when I see you Oils for a second time. You are headlining a show on the January long weekend by the Murray. “Yarrawonga Rockalonga” – something like that. The Yarrawonga Showgrounds full of utes and Bundy stickers. It is hot. Dusty and hot.

It has been Al’s idea. Environmentalist, engineer, friend. We are late leaving as I want to play cricket in Melbourne on the Saturday. We bowl – get them all out with 20 minutes to play on Day 1. When I walk out to open the batting, I aim only to remain not out, so as to resume the next week. But within minutes I am clean bowled.

In dark humour we cruise up the black ribbon evening Hume through drought-affected central Victoria. But when steam begins pouring from the front of the HQ Kingswood, I pull over – this day is getting no better. By the side of the road we wait for the engine to cool. We climb the fence, set off across parched paddocks, looking for water. We have two empty bottles, one hillside and a flicker of hope. Over a ridge or two, we find a farm dam. It is very low. More of a puddle. And as careful as we are, the only fluid we manage to collect is a muddy soup. Dusk of mid-summer is well advanced before the radiator cap is cool enough to touch. The HQ swallows the dam water and we limp into Yarrawonga – well late, but we’ve made it. Of  course, you Oils are magnificent.

With P Garrett leading, I join the Australian Conservation Foundation. I watch him agitate for change from outside the tent. When he runs for election as an ALP candidate, I see a man who now wants to try agitating from inside the tent. At the time, the end of your Midnight Oil doesn’t phase me greatly – all things must pass.

But I am happy for you when you re-ignite in the 2010s.

Somewhere in there, a few of us see you Oils play the Myer Music Bowl. Part way through the mighty show, creative force Jim Moginie takes a nasty spill and has to leave the stage. Down with hamstring. And it’s a surprise. A reminder that what we have is only ever good for right now.

 

 

By now I have work at the Bureau of Meteorology. Professionally, I report on floods, on weather and climate. How much of this is due to Midnight Oil is a good question.

And so to 2022. You Oils announce what seem to be two final shows at the Palais Theatre (capacity 2800). After I try and fail to secure two tickets to either show on “pre-sale” day, by the time of the public release, I’m ready to go alone.

“Sometimes you’re beaten to the call, sometimes
Sometimes you’re taken to the wall but you don’t give in
Sometimes you’re beaten to the call, sometimes
Sometimes you’re taken to the wall but you don’t give in”
Midnight Oil, Sometimes

And I’m beyond grateful to land a solitary ticket. I’m off to “One For The Planet” – the Monday show – at which you Oils will play the “10 to 1” album in its entirety.

Monday dawns and I spend my working day discussing a third La Niña in successive years. We look at ocean temperatures. We look at outputs from Global Climate Models. We discuss rainfall and temperature outlooks for Australia for the next 3 months. This is exactly where I should be.

And then, on Monday evening I’m onto the #96 tram, again, exactly where I should be. Entering the Palais, I’m exactly where I should be. I head upstairs and watch the people around me. Look at these groups of old friends. Look at the old tour t-shirts. Look at the back-slapping and the smiles. I’m not sure, but through the crowd I think I see Vika and Linda Bull enter the theatre. And it has me wondering how other artists appreciate you Oils. I wonder.

And when I settle into row 12 million at the back of the Palais, I am again exactly where I should be. Beside me on one side is a woman about my age with her teenage son.

“What do ya reckon, eh? I’ve done pretty well getting my son along?”

I agree she sure has.

“Oh, he loves them. He’s got a turntable in his room – so I gave him ’10 to 1′ for Christmas – and he plays the darn thing non-stop. ‘It’s a journey, Mum,’ he says. Oh, it’s great.”

The son arrives back from wherever he’s been, a bit sheepish, dressed in a Bird Noises t-shirt that he has bought tonight. On the other side of me is a silver haired gentleman who is on for a chat.

“Have you seen the Oils before? My wife has. Tonight is my first time!”

And it is wonderful to be here. There is a real sense of a shared something. And the show?

Well, of course the show is a triumph. Oldies, newies, rarities, the most enormous hits. And P Garrett leading us all through it. On topic he refers to the absurdity of the monarchy, before tearing the top off Truganini.

“I see the Union Jack in flames…” and 2800 of us yell “LET IT BURN!!!”

 

 

After a kick-arse opening, “Let’s play this album then,” says P Garrett.

Under his hat, Jim Moginie gets funky with keyboards and soundscaping. Rob Hirst clatter-snaps his isolated drums perched on a side stage. Peter Garrett powers the Outside World. Martin Rotsey leads speculative guitar.

The whole place goes OFF through high energy Only the Strong, Short Memory, and Read About It. We catch our breath and float in ethereal magnificence of Scream in Blue. And then GO OFF again for US Forces into Power and the Passion. Yowser. It’s the beautiful, artistic glory of Maralinga, Tin Legs and Tin Mines into Somebody’s Trying to Tell Me Something.

This live performance of the album has elevated 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.

“I know, I know that the cannibals wear smart suits and ties
And I know they arm wrestle on the altar
And I say, don’t leave your heart in a hard place”
Midnight Oil, Sometimes

 

 

Midnight Oil, you treat us now to a jukebox of memories, as you rock and roll and storm the night. Jimmy Sharman’s Boxers, King of the Mountain, Knife’s Edge, Hercules, Dreamworld…

I think of the Murray River, of rising carbon dioxide levels, of activism. I think of high school, of uni, of hospital, of fatherhood. I think of the people alongside me tonight, and alongside me in life generally. I think of people doing what they can, agitating when they can and where they can. Working how they can. I think of collective effort and of shared vision. And I know that not everyone can run for Federal Parliament and not everyone can write a song. Not everyone can order and pack merchandise for a touring band. And not everyone can write about it. We do what we can.

The encore is epic – and even as it’s occurring, I wonder which song will close this night. Which song will be the last one I hear from Midnight Oil.

Whichever you choose will be perfect.
And it is.

Thank you, Midnight Oil.
Thank you.

Sometimes you’re beaten to the call, sometimes
Sometimes you’re taken to the wall, no, no
Sometimes you’re beaten to the call, sometimes
Sometimes you’re taken to the wall but you don’t give in
Sometimes you’re beaten to the call, sometimes
Sometimes you’re taken to the wall
Sometimes you’re shaken to the core, sometimes
Sometimes the face is gonna fall, but you don’t give in
Sometimes you’re beaten to the call, sometimes
Sometimes you’re taken to the wall but you don’t give in

 

Read Smokie’s story Midnight Oil: from the Astor to the Palais

Read more from E.regnans HERE

 

 

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