[Paul Bisson]

Passing along a review of the Toronto show from today's Globe and Mail 
(allegedly Canada's national paper). Not a particularly good review but 
interesting because the Globe tends to cover "high art" like classical and 
jazz -- so interesting that they would bother including a review two days 
after the concert. Also has a nice big picture of Peter.



Oil in troubled times

Still protesting after 25 years, Peter Garrett is a comforting throwback to 
a simpler era

By ALAN NIESTER
Special to The Globe and Mail


Monday, October 29, 2001 – Print Edition, Page R4


Midnight Oil
At Kool Haus
in Toronto on Saturday

The term "protest singer" invariably conjures an image of a hairy, earnest 
person strumming an acoustic guitar in and around the 1950s and 1960s. Think 
Phil Ochs. Bob Dylan. Barry Maguire.

But one of the most dynamic and effective protest singers of the past few 
decades does not even remotely fit that description. Peter Garrett is seven 
feet tall, profoundly bald and, as the lead singer of the traditionally 
minded and relatively straightforward rock band Midnight Oil, incorporates 
classic Jaggerisms into his performances.

But he is a protest singer nonetheless. Over the course of Garrett's 25-year 
career with the band, he has railed against such topics as the 
marginalization of Australia's indigenous population (on the band's biggest 
international hit Beds Are Burning), the plight of impoverished workers 
(Blue Sky Mine), nuclear proliferation (Blossom and Blood) and just about 
everything else that he and his band deemed not quite right.

Over the past few years, however, pop-music charts outside of the Anzac 
Territories has been remarkably Oil-free, a condition that may have resulted 
from the fact that people can only be badgered for so long. Even Ochs and 
Dylan knew when to start changing the subject.

But Garrett (who once mounted a nearly successful campaign for a seat in the 
Australian Senate) seems to have been absent the day that lesson was 
delivered at rock-star school -- out attending a Greenpeace fundraiser, no 
doubt.

Nonetheless, Saturday night saw a rabid crowd of the long-memoried (many of 
whom, not surprisingly, were expat Aussies) at Toronto's Kool Haus to 
witness the first local performance by the Oz quintet in the new millennium. 
And happy to report, time has not dulled the edge of these committed, 
politicized rockers.

The touring lineup may be simple -- two guitars, bass, drums and Garrett -- 
but three decades of practice have made it a top-notch performing band, and 
it is probably one of the keys to Midnight Oil's longevity that their 
dynamic musical approach acts as a sugar-coating to their political 
messages.

They opened Saturday's performance with a trio of rousing anthems, Redneck 
Wonderland, See the Wild Horses and Too Much Sunshine, the latter of which 
probably had something to do with ozone depletion (which, for Australians, 
would seem like an obvious target).

After a melodic change of pace (Capricornia, which featured three-part 
harmonies and a Crowded House-styled melody), they railed about the plight 
of refugees in East Timor (Say Your Prayers) before moving en masse to the 
front of the stage for acoustic takes on some of their best-known numbers, 
including the aforementioned Beds and Blue Sky Mine.

They drove the set home by returning to full electronic mode on such numbers 
as Hearts Can't Be Broken and Dreamworld. And occasionally, Garrett 
addressed the crowd with short rants on, for example, the hypocrisy of the 
music business or his perceived view of the usefulness of the monarchy.

Of course, a lot of Garrett's concerns are largely overshadowed these days 
by more pressing worries. His take on the matter was that we shouldn't stop 
living our lives, but press on as we normally would.

This is certainly the approach Midnight Oil has taken, and to hear them 
philosophizing about Australian Aborigines and asbestos miners in a world 
seemingly full of anthrax bombers actually had a kind of reassuring feel to 
it, as if the 20th century was still with us.




>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<
       Paul Bisson
   pbisson@hotmail.com
>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<


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