Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] Birch Hill Review

Craig Lawton lawton_craig@hotmail.com
Sat, 03 Nov 2001 05:19:34 +1100


Doug,

I'm a list member (craiggy@ozemail.com.au) but do not have access to my 
account from NYC. Can you post this to the list for me?

I was a the Birch Hill gig as well. Waited around outside for the band. 
Peter must have dashed off quickly as he was already on the bus. Spoke to 
Jim, Martin, Bones and Rob but! First time too and I'm Australian. Had to 
come to the US to speak to them. :-)

Jim was real nice and said that they were having a good tour seeing as it 
was unannounced and all. A new song was meant to be played on the radio in 
the US today (probably that live radio recording). He said next year would 
be the full commercial tour and that this tour was a sort of feeler to see 
how much interest there was for the band in the US. He was especially 
looking forward to tonights NYC gig (so am i). He also mentioned that he 
wanted to have Fuzzface re-released this year.

Rob was great too, and we talked about Cloudstreet (a novel by Tim Winton, 
an aussie classic, and also made into an award winning theatre production), 
and the TRIBUTE album. He said he like about half of the songs but gave 
special mention to Regurgitators "Stand In Line" ("They totally re-invented 
it!") and Frenzel Rhombs Dead Heart. He seems to like the gurge. I remember 
him saying good things about them in the past. My brother got him to sign 
one of the white stars on the aussie falg and he commented that he wouldn't 
sign the Union Jack!

Martin was pretty quiet, but Bones was in fine form. He has a solo vocal 
piece in one of the new songs which is sweetttttt. He has such a great 
voice! I asked him about that and he said "When the boys dipped out of the 
studio, I said give me a fucking go!" or something like that.

New songs sound pretty poppy to me, sort of following on from the new songs 
on the Real thing, but really well put together and interesting. They all 
sound very natural if that makes sense. The band plays them like they've 
been playing them for years and they just fit well. I can't wait to hear the 
studio versions. Golden Age was a beaut but not the best IMHO, even though 
the guitar lick is well golden. One song with line "Where you gonna live?" 
sounded like a Greenhouse rant but with wit and dark humour. Luritja Way 
rocks and Too Much Sunshine just keeps on repeating "Too Much Sunshine" but 
sounds soooo good.

Can't wait for tonight... I'm on a mission for a drum stick! :)

Craig

One other thing about the gig. Peter Garrett seemed pretty distracted from 
usual, but his singing was the best I've heard live since BSM. He even hit 
the high ad-lib at the end of Forgotten years perfectly. The vocals for the 
whole night, from the whole band, were siblime.

Craig
>From: dlocke@agency.com
>To: powderworks@cs.colorado.edu
>Subject: [Powderworks] Birch Hill Review
>Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 11:59:23 -0500
>
>Don't have the set list.. but highlights for me was "Only the Strong" &
>"Spirit of the Age" and a few of the new songs..the new songs are great...
>Too Much Sunshine was nice, can't remember the other titles.  But they had
>me really anxious for the new album, they said its coming out early next
>year.
>
>They opened with Redneck Wonderland which was really rocking.   They played
>a lot off Diesel & Dust... Beds, Dead Heart, Bullroarer, Warakurna,
>Sometimes (the closer).  Also remember King of the Mountain, Forgotten
>Years, Truganini,  nothing off of Breathe album, nothing pre-Diesel except
>Only the Strong... which sounded pretty awesome and the definitely the 
>crowd
>was the most into that one.
>
>Birch Hill itself is a creepy giant shack, looks like they could film a
>horror movie there.  No alcohol served, Peter made a comment about that 
>like
>"I can't believe this a dry bar" or words to that effect.  I was hoping for
>"Pub With No Beer" because of the situation but they didn't play it.  The
>show rocked anyway.   Crowd was a little subdued I thought, although a few
>people around the stage were into it.
>
>Musically the band was pretty tight and I thought and into it.  I was
>surprised how good the vocal harmonies are live.  The place was boomin loud
>and I'm glad I had earplugs with me.
>
>Peter said a few words about the terrorism and praised "firemen,
>environmentalists, and school teachers."  Also he remarked that when the 
>Dow
>Jones is going down Midnight Oil goes up, which brought out a cheer from 
>the
>crowd...
>
>This was my first Oils show and I had a blast..
>
>Doug
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