Midnight Oil’s new seven-track album “The Makarrata Project” rumbles like a well-tuned engine. Photo: SONY MUSIC
“We’re getting the band back together.”
It’s a sentence that can be equal parts exhilarating and terrifying for music fans to hear.
The idea that your favourite band, for many years neatly tucked away in the “where are they now?” file, has decided to squeeze back into their stretch denims and strap on the Stratocaster to have another crack at the title, elicits mixed emotions for many of us.
Often, it offers a portal back to an idealised moment in our youth.
It might rekindle the sensations of that endless summer spent bouncing from pub to pub, gig to gig as you barrelled through life like a beer soaked cannonball – exuberant, optimistic, chaotic and untouched by life’s weighty concerns like career, kids, mortgages, and who is going to put the bins out on Tuesday night.
Often it sparks a flame of yearning for a time when anything seemed possible, even just for one day.
In his 2013 film “Made Of Stone”, acclaimed British film maker Shane Meadows ( “This is England”,” Twenty Four Seven” ) documents The Stone Roses reformation in 2012 following a 16-year silence.
What is striking about the film is its focus on the fans, and just how invested they are in the mythology of The Stone Roses transformative powers as a generational force.
This was the band that laid the foundation stone for Brit Pop and offered a generation of British kids a new vision of a post-Thatcher, loved up, ecstasy soaked future that was free of the drudgery of Maggie’s kingdom.
The Roses homecoming gigs at Manchester’s Heaton Island, captured in the film, are drenched in a sort of manic euphoria that’s both touching and a little sad.
Of course, there can be no way back to those days. We can merely window shop our memories. What we are left to deal with is how we integrate those songs, that ideal, into living our best lives today.
These memories, these stories are precious to us music fans. For many of us, they’ve been our spirit guide that has shepherded us through life, informing our politics, our careers and our values.
They are not to be messed with.
For generations of Australian kids, Midnight Oil is the band that gave them an identity, a sense of purpose, and a spirit of place.
The Oils spoke harsh truths about our relationship with the wider world, the country we call home and most importantly, the First Nations people we are yet to fully embrace and reconcile with for the historical wrongs they have suffered.
Midnight Oil gave suburban kids a dialect in which to explore and discuss these big ideas, and they did it at the same time as being faultlessly untouchable as the best live band on the planet.
PLEASE HELP US CONTINUE TO THRIVE BY BECOMING AN OFFICIAL FOOTYOLOGY PATRON. JUST CLICK THIS LINK.
So when news of the Oils reunion began to filter through a few years back, there was an anticipation very similar to that captured by Meadows in his film about The Stone Roses.
Could they, would they be able to relight the fire and build a bridge for us to our younger spirits?
God forbid they’d be plugging back in to run through a greatest hits and memories marathon in a mid-tempo, super rules, victory lap.
Nobody wants to hear “US Forces” or “Beds are Burning” cranked out as some limp rock cabaret memory snuff.
This shit is way too important for that.
Of course, we needn’t have worried. Midnight Oil is a band that first and foremost puts its values at the top of the batting order. If they weren’t fair dinkum, then they wouldn’t bother.
And so the 2017 World Tour saw the Oils emerge triumphant, more potent, powerful and passionate than ever.
The last piece in that puzzle was the prospect of some new music that once again spoke to an Australia, here and now.
That mission was accomplished recently with the release of the seven-track album “The Makarrata Project”, a collaboration between Midnight Oil and a posse of indigenous artists.
Makarrata is a Yolngu word “describing a process of conflict resolution, peacemaking and justice”. Following the visionary and ground-breaking “Uluru Statement from the heart”, Midnight Oil once again stepped up to advocate not only on behalf of, but with First Nations people.
The result is a record that not only speaks about indigenous issues, but also with indigenous people as the likes of Jessica Mauboy, Dan Sultan, Frank Yamma, Alice Skye and Tasman Keith amongst others testify about their experience and aspirations.
From the off, “The Makarrata Project” rumbles like a well-tuned engine. “First Nation” and “Gadigal Land” slip straight on to the team sheet of Oils classics.
Like the issue of indigenous recognition itself, Midnight Oil have unfinished business, and the urgency that made them so compelling from day one is still shot through on this record.
Yet, there is a shift as well.
On the beautiful, mesmeric “Change the Date” featuring the voice of the late Gurrumul along with Dan Sultan, Midnight Oil and their indigenous comrades have given us an anthem for an act of healing and recognition that is surely inevitable.
The album closes with “Uluru Statement from the Heart/Come On Down” a beautiful, achingly honest and inspiring landmark statement made at the 2017 constitutional convention reaffirming the determination, vitality and indefatigable aspirations of First Nations Australia.
Midnight Oil recently suffered a tragic loss, with the death of bass player Bones Hillman, who succumbed to cancer at the age of 62.
Hillman’s spirit is threaded through the record, and “The Makaratta Project” is testament to his importance to the band and the songs.
The return of Midnight Oil was never about the past. Midnight Oil only ever matter if they’re able to envisage a better future.
That’s what makes this comeback so precious. In these tough times, for many of us, a better future is like a ship sailing away from us over a distant horizon.
The Oils have once again taken it upon themselves to help us navigate these choppy waters to plot a course to a better Australia.
Gadigal Land had some punchy lyrics , sentiments that I would agree with . But to say this is a classic is bullshit. It smacks of desperation. If you are going to smack us in the face dont use a halfarsed brass section . Think of “No time for games : . I was so underwhelmed. Sorry Francis but I doubt you now
Love this Francis, agree with every word. The Oils shows in 2017 were a vital reminder of what a force they are as a live band. They also caused a sober reflection that we had not made much progress in the fight for justice for our indigenous people, or environmental progress, or in the reduction in the power of corporations in our society. The lyrics remained all too relevant. The fight continues.
One small criticism – the bins go out on Wednesday night. Everyone knows that.
100%. Love the latest Oils brilliance. On a musical level, like most new albums, the more you listen the more it strikes a chord. Above that like their old albums is the sprinkling for some and the smack to the head for others is the education the lyrics provide. One of the greatest complements for a band is to speak of one’s music is that it’s timeless. For the Oils this has never been more true because unfortunately in the lyrics of ‘Short Memory’ history continues to repeat and in some cases has never been more relevant, just like Midnight Oil. I look forward to the upcoming album which is sure to include issues of inept governments, climate change, T-Rump et al. One thing is for sure is that there will be a wicked beat, epic guitar riffs, some random dance moves and plenty of passion.