Legendary Australian rock band and agitators Midnight Oil today announced their first World Tour in over two decades. They also unveiled plans to release three archival box sets including a collection called “The Overflow Tank” which will contain more than 14 hours of previously unreleased and rare material.
“The Great Circle 2017” World Tour will see the group’s classic lineup literally circle around our overheating planet for 6 months, starting and ending with gigs in Sydney. Appropriately for a band forged in their hometown’s sweat-drenched beer barns, the tour will begin in mid-April with an intimate local pub gig (details to be announced closer to the date). Midnight Oil will then perform 30 gigs around the world during the northern summer, playing iconic venues from Sao Paulo’s Espaço das Americas and the Wiltern in L.A. to London’s Hammersmith Apollo and The Olympia in Paris. They will share festival stages with artists like Arcade Fire, Sting and The Pixies and finally return to New Zealand after 20 years. This long-awaited World Tour will climax with 18 special homecoming concerts through October and November, 2017.
These will be Midnight Oil’s only shows in the last 15 years apart from two stadium benefit concerts (and their related small warmup gigs) in Australia in 2005 and 2009. It will also be the group’s most extensive world tour since their classic late 80’s/early 90’s albums like “Diesel & Dust”, “Blue Sky Mining” and “Earth & Sun & Moon” sold over 10 million copies around the globe.
All dates, venues and ticket information are listed below. Exact on sale times are deliberately being staggered from show to show to reduce website congestion so fans should pay careful attention to all the details at www.midnightoil.com/tour-dates. Extensive anti-scalping measures are being taken around this tour so fans are also formally advised to only buy tickets from the official ticket agencies listed on the band’s website to avoid possible fraud and needless overpayment via so called “reselling” sites.
In a unique press conference on Sydney Harbour today the band also announced the impending release of a remastered CD box set called “The Full Tank” featuring all of their existing albums and EP’s plus a mammoth new 4 CD/8 DVD trove called “The Overflow Tank” which will include over 14 hours of previously unreleased and rare material. Both of these box sets will be housed in replica miniature water tanks like the one featured onstage at so many ‘Oils’ gigs. The band also unveiled their first ever complete Vinyl collection which will feature 11 remastered LP’s and two 12″ EP’s all cut at Abbey Rd Studios in London. The three box sets will be released around the start of the tour but full tracklistings and pre-orders are available now here.
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Australian culture knows the basics of Midnight Oil’s story. They are the incendiary post-punk band from Sydney’s northern beaches who shunned pop TV shows, forging a fierce bond with their audience through nonstop gigging and jagged Ozrock classics like “Back On The Borderline”, “Bus To Bondi” and “Don’t Wanna Be The One”. They are the musical innovators who turned high tech, anti-jingoistic polemic into hits like “Power & The Passion”, “U.S. Forces” and “When The Generals Talk”. They are the activists whose social justice campaigning includes “The Dead Heart”, “Redneck Wonderland”, “Beds Are Burning” and hijacking the 2000 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony with their “Sorry” suits. They are the committed humanists and environmentalists who brought us anthems like “Blue Sky Mine”, “Forgotten Years” and “Say Your Prayers” plus a string of protests from the Tasmanian wilderness and the Jabiluka Uranium mine near Kakadu to mid-town Manhattan where they unforgettably stopped traffic outside the Exxon building after the Alaskan oil spill.
Their music makes you feel. Their lyrics make you think. And the combined impact live onstage is nothing less than a call to action.
In a dangerously warming world of Trump, Hanson, Petry and Le Pen the voice of Midnight Oil clearly takes on renewed relevance; they have always been a band that both reflects and shapes “the temper of the times”. Clarion calls like “it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees” may have been intended for earlier eras but they resonate more than ever in these days of ‘alternative facts’.
In keeping with the band’s longstanding commitments, their carbon footprint during “The Great Circle” World Tour will, of course, be fully offset and sustainability initiatives will be undertaken at all shows. Midnight Oil will also continue their collaborations with local and international environmental organizations including Greenpeace, supporting their campaigns on crucial issues like dangerous climate change and the imminent threats to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
At one level “The Great Circle 2017” simply reflects the geographic reality that the tour will loop around the world and circle Australia. At another level the name clearly implies the planet itself but it has a further meaning too. Sailors, and airmen use “the great circle” to navigate the globe because on a sphere the shortest distance between two points is not usually a straight line. How appropriate for a group who has always been deeply engaged with the world around them but whose career path has never been linear.
Midnight Oil is more than just a rock’n’roll band. In 2017 they will finally bring things back to where they all began. The circle remains unbroken.
SOUTH AMERICA
April 25 — Pepsi on Stage, Porto Alegre
April 27 — Live, Curtiba
April 29 — Espaço das Americas, São Paolo
April 30 — Vivo Rio, Rio De Janeiro
April 2 — NET Live, Brasilia
NORTH AMERICA
May 6 — Center Stage, Atlanta, GA
May 9 — The Filmore, Silver Spring, MD
May 11 — House of Blues, Boston, MA
May 13 — Webster Hall, New York City, NY
May 16 — Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA
May 18 — The Vic, Chicago, IL
May 20 — Danforth Theatre, Toronto, Canada
May 23 — Paramount Theatre, Denver, CO
May 25 — The Wiltern, Los Angeles, CA
May 27 — Fox Theatre, Oakland, CA
May 29 — Revolution Hall, Portland, OR
May 31 — Moore Theatre, Seattle, WA
June 2 — The Commodore, Vancouver, Canada
EUROPE + UK
June 21 — E-Werk, Cologne, Germany
June 23 — Paradiso, Amsterdam, Holland
June 25 — Huxleys Neue Welt, Berlin, Germany
June 27 — Amager Bio, Copenhagen, Denmark
June 29 — Rockafeller Music Hall, Oslo, Norway
July 1 — Furuviksparken, Gävle, Sweden
July 4 — Hammersmith Apollo, London, UK
July 6 — Olympia, Paris, France
July 7 — Festival de Beauregard, Hérouville-Saint-Claire, France
July 9 — Les Deferlantes Festival, Argeles-sur-Mer, France
July 12 — Volkshaus, Zurich, Switzerland
July 14 — Musilac, Aix Les Bains, France
July 16 — Les Vieilles Charrues, Carhaix, France
July 18 — Batschkapp, Frankfurt, Germany
July 21 — Colours of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic
NEW ZEALAND
Sept. 9 — Vector Arena, Auckland, NZ
Sept. 11 — Horncastle Arena, Christchurch, NZ
AUSTRALIA
Oct. 2 — ANZAC Oval, Alice Springs, NT (w/ Dan Sultan & Apakatjah)
Oct. 4 — Darwin Amphitheatre, Darwin, NT (w/ Dan Sultan & Irrunytju Band)
Oct. 7 — Kuranda Amphitheatre, Cairns, QLD (w/ Urthboy)
Oct. 10 — Townsville Ent. Centre, Townsville, QLD (w/ Urthboy)
Oct. 12 — Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton, QLD (w/ Urthboy)
Oct. 14 — Big Pineapple Fields, Sunshine Coast, QLD (w/ The Living End & Jebediah)
Oct. 15 — Riverstage, Brisbane, QLD (w/ The Jezabels)
Oct. 19 — Hockey Fields, Coffs Harbour, NSW (w/ Jebediah & Jack River)
Oct. 21 — Hope Estate, Hunter Valley, NSW (w/ Birds of Tokyo & Ash Grunwald)
Oct. 24 — AIS Arena, Canberra, ACT (w/ Something For Kate)
Oct. 26 — The Village Green Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, SA (w/ Spiderbait & Bad//Dreems)
Oct. 28 — Perth Arena, Perth, WA (w/ Spiderbait)
Oct. 1 — Derwent Entertainment Centre, Hobart, TAS (w/ The Jezabels)
Oct. 3 — Gateway Lakes, Wodonga, VIC (w/ The Living End)
Oct. 4 — Hanging Rock, Mt Macedon, VIC (w/ John Butler Trio, Something for Kate, Frank Yamma & David Bridie)
Oct. 6 — Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne, VIC (w/ The Jezabels & Adalita)
Oct. 8 — WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong, NSW (w/ Abbe May)
Oct. 11 — The Domain, Sydney, NSW (w/ John Butler Trio & A.B.Original)
