Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] HowlSpace article

Kate Parker Adams kate@dnki.net
Thu, 12 Dec 2002 21:01:00 -0500


This was clearly written by a true fan of this truly unique band.

At 10:32 PM 12/12/02 +0000, roger bonastre sirerol wrote:

>http://www.howlspace.com.au/news/index.htm
>
>MIDNIGHT OIL: GARRETT PUTS DOWN THAT WEAPON
>Typically understated and dramatic, Midnight Oil have come to an end as a 
>living thing with a simple announcement on the band’s website that Peter 
>Garrett is quitting after “a great ride together” while the rest of the 
>band promise to keep making music together “in another guise at some point 
>down the track”. If it was going to happen, it was always going to happen 
>something like it has. On their own terms. Midnight Oil was always an 
>incredibly democratic band, all in or not at all. Sometimes decisions took 
>agonizingly long to make while that ethos was satisfied. That ‘thing’ they 
>had also made the Oils’ famous politics all the more powerful and 
>difficult. Obviously an issues motivated human being Peter Garrett didn’t 
>ever make the band his personal mouthpiece. What they said they said as 
>one. It’s interesting now to reflect on what has become the group’s final 
>album, ‘Capricornia’ and what kind of record it was. With that album 
>Midnight Oil wrote, recorded and performed for the love of making music 
>together, and the views expressed were universal rather than specific. The 
>images were landscapes instead of life studies. Midnight Oil always said 
>more than ‘US Forces’ and ‘Beds Are Burning. This was that other 
>dimension. It was the closest of any Midnight Oil albums to Rob Hirst’s 
>sideline group the Ghostwriters. We can draw all manner of conclusions to 
>Peter Garrett’s decision.- no, in the end it would have been a group 
>decision. Peter owes us nothing. He has every right to get on with the 
>rest of his life. Good luck to him. We can only hope that the Oils didn’t 
>decide to move on because we weren’t listening any more. Worse, what if 
>Peter Garrett has come to the conclusion that given today’s music world he 
>can speak louder another way?. Thanks Midnight Oil for showing and proving 
>what a powerful weapon music could be. ­ Ed.Nimmervoll (December 3)
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