At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Midnight Oil incited controversy on the Games' worldwide stage when, during the closing ceremony, they wore black outfits emblazoned with the word "sorry" in bold white lettering. In full view of the Australian Prime Minister - not to mention a massive global television audience - the Oils' guerrilla message was an important moment in the process of reconciliation with the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.

Taking a stand on behalf of Australia's Indigenous population has long been a central cause for Midnight Oil's activism, since way before "Beds Are Burning" - their unforgettable song about Aboriginal land rights that they fittingly performed at the Olympics - was an international hit single in the late '80s.

Currently, the band is working toward eliciting a formal act of acknowledgement and apology from the Australian Government on behalf of earlier generations for inhuman policies that led to the dispossessing of Aboriginal children from their mothers.

It's believed by a majority of Australians that the gesture, called "Sorry," would lead to healing and final reconciliation. Despite government noncompliance to date, Midnight Oil, along with hundreds of thousands of countrymen and women, unwaveringly continue to show support for their homeland's first citizens.

The level of heat, anger, passion and forthrightness that Midnight Oil brings to their politics is equally channeled into their notoriously powerful live concert performances, with an ardor and ferocity undiminished by the passing of almost a quarter century together as a band.

A review of a recent Oils show in Australia's leading quality newspaper, The Melbourne Age, opined that "Time had done little to quell their fire ... Garrett is still, without question, the most formidable and original frontman of any band ... ever ... completely bereft of any cliched rock posturing," adding that "They remain a relevant, incisive foil to the true anachronisms that continue to disturb a nation's conscience."

The first Midnight Oil dates in the U.S. in almost half a decade are certain to be electrifying, when the band's white-hot presence will burn up stages across the nation with an Antipodean ferocity too long missing from the Northern Hemisphere. As Midnight Oil brings "Capricornia" and more to the Americas, their fans will join together for a long-awaited reunion at this year's upcoming mini-tour, to be followed by a full-scale 2002 visitation and onslaught.

From NewMediaMusic.com, by

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