[mdntoil]

yeah oils!!! what a great review! i can't wait for the NJ, NY, MA shows!!!

take that, michael stipe...



on 10/10/01 11:15 AM, MoshD@aol.com at MoshD@aol.com wrote:

> Hi all:
> 
> Here is a concert review from the Orange County Register for the Anahiem
> House of Blues show on Monday night.
> 
> Doug
> 
> 
> By BEN WENER
> The Orange County Register
> At a time when much of what constitutes "edgy" music seems calculated for
> maximum nuisance and minimum meaning, it's easy to cling to something as
> primal as Midnight Oil - and to get swept up in the band's mopeless urgency
> to the point of overstatement.
> So let's take at least one military stride backward before the fountain of
> praise gushes forth uncontrollably: As great as the Oils were Monday night at
> the sold-out House of Blues in Anaheim - so great, in fact, that their
> premature fall from popular acclaim is once again a vivid reminder how
> cruelly unjust the rock world can be - it seems unlikely that the Australians
> will regain solid footing in the mainstream. If anything, they're swimming in
> the wrong (which is actually the right) direction.
> And much to their credit. Time has passed by the Oils - the kindest thing it
> could do, really, since more than a decade after their American breakthrough
> (and four since their last tour) it has left them with an impossibly vibrant,
> electrifying sound of no particular era and little forebearance.
> "Timelessness" is appropriate, sure, but there's something more unique than
> that at play. More than ever these guys come off like they've been teleported
> in from other realms.
> There's a formula to their righteousness, of course. The bottom: almost
> always a propulsive, well-beyond-speed- limit driving rhythm, punctuated by
> Rob Hirst's crisp drumming. The top: one of two guitar textures, either
> furiously strummed acoustics, the sort that always shamed the Alarm, or
> chiming Rickenbackers, used in a manner that, post-Byrds, is second only to
> Tom Petty's fashion.
> And then there's the glue: Peter Garrett, easily one of the most captivating
> presences to step on a stage in the past 25 years. A tower of earnestness,
> his sweaty bald pate helping to sculpt his Frankensteinesque visage, his
> lanky frame simultaneously marching and flailing, his spindly right hand
> constantly grabbing at invisible forces near his brow, then theatrically
> bringing them down like a gun-shaped gavel to smite the horrible - simply
> put, he is a sight everyone should encounter at least once.
> Garrett is the conduit, the fire in the band's belly. Take the well-known
> "Beds Are Burning," for instance, which here was actually the least
> overwhelming of the evening's hits. In a slightly revamped setting, with the
> quintet amassed martially at the lip of the stage, the song lumbered at the
> start, stumbling around a beat, its spy-noir groove not smacking you in the
> gut the way it should.
> Then came Garrett. "The time has come!" (Chugging groove locking in.) "To say
> fair's fair!" (Stronger, tighter.) "To pay the rent!" (Almost got it now.)
> "To pay our share!" (And now it's wicked.)
> Should you have come looking for sloganeering, naturally these 90 minutes of
> riveting protest-rock gave you plenty to choose from. Statements for sobering
> stability: "If you read the history books, this sort of thing happens again
> and again and again and again." Warnings of rage, like the sinister
> proclamation "and the world won't stand still" from the undervalued
> "Truganini," here introduced with a wish for "a minimum loss for the innocent
> and a maximum loss for the guilty" involved in the infamous attacks of Sept.
> 11. (Counter that with this one: "Hands have been clenched into fists for too
> long," from "Forgotten Years.")
> Some lyrics took on meanings we couldn't hear before. "It's better to die on
> your feet than to live on your knees," for instance, followed by the clincher
> from "Power and the Passion": "Sometimes you've got to take the hardest
> line." (To temper the anger, that was followed by a roaring closer, "Read
> About It," with its helpless shrug, "There must be some solution, but I just
> don't know.")
> This was the kickoff to the Oils' tour, and at times the absence showed -
> clumsy timekeeping, flubbed entrances, a leatheriness lacking in Garrett's
> voice that left him straining at some salvos. But it would be foolish to be
> harsh, particularly as the band hasn't lost a shred of potency. Consider how
> many political outfits have endured in the past quarter-century - sayonara
> Gang of Four, adios Rage Against the Machine, cheers to the Clash. Those that
> remain, even at their best, seem soft in comparison.
> Can you imagine R.E.M. showing as much vitality today but for a song or two,
> or envision U2 recapturing that unforgettable original fire it brought to "I
> Will Follow"? Not a chance.
> Yet Midnight Oil soldiers on, ageless. Galvanizing and pertinent. It's as if
> they never stopped fighting.
> 
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