Midnight Oil, The Roundhouse. 9th July 2022

Tonight is my first gig in the quite spectacular Roundhouse in London. This venue has been on the wish list for a while and it doesn’t disappoint. I needed an excuse to come here, but after Pearl Jam in Hyde Park last night, staying a little longer to catch Midnight Oil was a no brainier. I’ve never seen them before and this is threatened to be their last performance in the U.K. if you don’t know they’re not exactly local, from Australia they seem to have brought out the Aussies en mass. Seriously, everyone I speak to has that delightful down-under twang. Including the spot on woman behind me shouting “Put your fackin’ phones away”. I’m in a sea of die hard fans. Of which I can’t pretend to be. In fact I’m expecting to only know a handful of songs. My favourite album is ‘Earth and Sun and Moon’, released in the 90s. I’ll be lucky to get a couple of songs from it, but I’m hopeful. It’s a career spanning set list, including stuff from their latest album ‘Resist’, but the sound is ummistakenly theirs throughout. Largely helped by singer Peter Garrett’s distinctive delivery and politically charged lyrics. They start with ‘We Resist’ and fucking hell I’m sold. The sound in here is incredible. It’s big but sounds like a club, it’s phenomenal. Garrett I believe is close to 70 and still sounds and looks brilliant. He bloody tall too, which is handy as it’s hot as hell and I’m stood near the back, but can still see him stalk and work the stage, buzzing around like he’s been plugged in. It’s not showy, they’re not that band. It’s garage punk, but with plenty of melody. Powder keg vitriol when required, with some folk sentiment providing the intelligence. What I’m trying to get at is there’s a lot going on in these songs. Sometimes there’s a song in a set that just transports me and tonight that is ‘Truganini’. It’s not a big song for them, although I’m eternally thankful they’ve chosen to include it tonight. I can’t explain how much I love this song. I know every word. I sing every word. I feel every word. It’s the sort of moment that will live with me forever. With the amount of live music I see, that statement puts this way above the usual hyperbole I spout in these reviews. There’s lots of British bashing. I’ve no issue with this, their argument against colonialism is solid and we’re all up for a bit of Boris and Royal bashing. ‘First Nation’ sounds monumental as does ‘Sometimes’ that precedes it. ‘My Country’ gets the striped back treatment and sounds incredibly haunting. I’m swept along with the fervour of the crowd. It’s infectious (are we allowed to use that word positively again yet?) The place goes off for ‘Blue Sky Mine’. It’s nuts, like Mancs at an Oasis reunion. I’ve pushed to the front and we’re at the business end now as they unleash ‘Power and the Passion’. I’ve seen a growing trend of drummers with gongs on stage… that they often  don’t even use. Not Rob Hirst, he’s got a corrugated silo sat behind him and sounds awesome belting the shit out of it during his solo. Then oh my god ‘Beds are Burning’. If the casual reader knows any Midnight Oil songs, it’s this. It’s THE hit, an anthem with a message. Midnight Oil don’t do frivolity. What a band. What a gig. What a venue. If you weren’t here, you really missed out, but if you were, you witnessed something truly marvellous.