Midnight Oil to tour in 2017, The Nation Blue to support

When your political career goes basically nowhere, you can always fall back on the vast, respected legacy of your band like Peter Garret can with Midnight Oil.

As the news of the day has been, the Australian rock legends are not only reuniting, but will also be touring Australia next year. However! While no exact dates have yet been given, a full announcement of the dates/venues is definitely on the horizon. The band said this about their current plans tour, on their website, and that this run might happen by the end of this year.

"We know it’s been a while but we wanted to tell you that the five of us are finally making plans to get together again for some gigs next year. We’re looking forward to hopefully playing overseas and touring our homeland for the first time since 2002. 

We won’t know exactly when, where and what we’ll be doing before next January at the earliest so in the meantime please just ignore any rumours. Unless and until you hear about something from us you can safely assume that it’s not yet confirmed. 

If you’d like us to send you an email when we do have specific news to announce then you can sign up for our mailing list here. 

Meanwhile, we’re still busy with other projects outside the band. 

For starters, Peter Garrett can confirm reports that he will finally return to music by releasing his first solo album. When writing his memoir ‘Big Blue Sky’ Peter revealed that ‘a surprising byproduct of writing words all day was to suddenly find music coming back…’ This news sparked some speculation that a new Oils album might be in the making. However the songs that he wrote alongside his memoir are more personal in nature – hence the decision to record them for a solo release. Expect more news on his album over coming months.

Drummer/songwriter Rob Hirst has maintained his work with acclaimed Australian blues outfit – and festival favorites – ‘The Backsliders’, with a new album just recorded. Last year, he released ‘Hirst and Sennett’, a garage pop/rock collaboration with Brisbane musician/writer Sean Sennett. Most recently Rob co-wrote ‘The Truth Walks Slowly In The Countryside’ with Nashville based duo Jay and Mark O’Shea – a musical tribute to the late farmer/ CSG activist George Bender.

Composer/producer/guitarist Jim Moginie continues to push the musical envelope with the development of his ‘Electric Guitar Orchestra’ for whom his composition ‘The Colour Wheel’ explores the boundaries between music and colour.   Jim has produced records for artists including Sarah Blasko. He also works as a screen composer and tours internationally with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, as well as pursuing his passion for Irish music with The Tinkers and Shameless Seamus.

Guitarist Martin Rotsey teamed up again with Jim and Rob to form instrumental surf combo ‘The Break’,  and joined in to play guitar on Peter’s new record.  Whilst bass player Bones Hillman moved to the US in 2007 and has since been active on the North American live scene, working out of Nashville and with Canadian artist Matthew Good, and long tme Oils producer Warne Livesey.

Lastly as a thanks to all of you for your continued patience here’s a free download of a live recording. It’s from one of the most recent gigs we did together – a warm up show in Canberra before the big “Sound Relief” benefit concert at the MCG back in 2009. Next year we want to make a racket just like this and we hope to see you there.

Cheers

Bones, Jim, Martin, Peter & Rob"

Also, the awesome and criminally underrated Tasmanian outfit, The Nation Blue, will support the group. If that's not a great taste of what Australian rock can do, then we don't know what is!