Midnight Oil still burning bright
Crowd was sparse, but rock was timeless

Sat, May 18, 2002

By Bartley Kives

If you find yourself in front of a big bald guy making twitchy movements underneath a warm bath of unearthly red light, you can only be watching one of two things: an episode of Twin Peaks or a Midnight Oil concert.

Twin Peaks was cancelled during the first Bush administration. But Midnight Oil just keeps on going, cranking out angular, politically charged guitar rock more than 15 years after it slid from the upper echelons of the North American pop charts.

The indefatigable Aussie band, which remains a major act in its kangaroo-infested homeland, proved that hipness or currency have nothing to do with the ability to rock out. Playing before a sparse crowd of 650 people last night at the Walker Theatre, Midnight Oil reached back into its 24-year recording history and delivered a perfectly crisp set of the jangly, ever-so-vaguely punkish rock 'n' roll subgenre we used to call "college rock" back when in the days when frontman Peter Garret would never be mistaken for R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe in a dark hallway.

The quintet weighted the early part of its set to new material, unleashing the title track to 1998's Redneck Wonderland and Too Much Sunshine, a track from the brand-new Capricornia disc, right off the top. But even the band's new material is readily identifiable as Midnight Oil, thanks to the wall of blazing guitars, propulsive rhythm section and Garrett's throaty vocals and almost comically intense delivery.

As the set wore on, Midnight Oil trotted out favourites from older albums, earning the loudest cheers for selections from Diesel And Dust and Blue Sky Mining. Garrett also performed solo in the middle of the audience, taking advantage of the 40-per-cent capacity crowd by plopping himself into the right-hand section of the floor.

Frankly, who cares if these guys stopped appearing above the pop-culture radar a decade ago. This was a perfectly great show, bolstered by amazing lighting and an incredibly cool stage set that included what appeared to be Australian folk art: stylized sculptures of a crocodile, stork and some kind of giant goat Nashville singer-guitarist Will Hoge opened up the show with a taut set of endearingly straight-ahead guitar rock. His intensely focused four-piece band impressively won over a sparse crowd that easily could have ignored the warm-up act.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca