The melody part may even include the Oils' new single White Skin, Black Heart. Garrett is reserving his decision on that because it could be too "electric." He is not sure if the Town Hall acoustics can take the "wild explosion of guitars and voices".

Aboriginal singer and actor Leah Purcell is sure, though, that it can take her song Run, Daisy Run, written for her grandmother who was removed from her family, aged three, and now an "anthem for the stolen generations".

It is electric in a different way; Purcell wrote it in just five minutes, as if her grandmother's spirit had given it to her in the old Aboriginal way. Grown men have come up to her with tears in their eyes after hearing her message wrapped in a morsel of music.

The dialogue part includes stars, too; Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson got a standing ovation for his last Sydney speech. Indigenous academic Marcia Langton, environmentalist Lynette Thorstensen, Australian Democrats leader Senator Cheryl Kernot and former farmers' spokesman Rick Farley will also speak.

With a line-up which includes indigenous singers Christine Anu and Maroochy Barambah, funny-folk Andrew Denton and Rob Sitch and musos Tim Finn and Paul Kelly, the organisers are hoping to fill the Town Hall up to the rafters from 3 pm onwards.

Garrett reckons this is a chance to go beyond talk and, after all, what rally ever had tickets available through Firstcall?

Purcell (who sings, dances and acts in a play about her life, Box the Pony next month during the Olympic Festival of the Dreaming) knows the power of music to convey what all the complex debates about native title cannot: "The message hits the heart."

"Music is not dogma. Given there has been such a lot of rhetoric, music is one of the partners to communication," said Garrett. In these Hansonite days, it is also "colour-blind".

Whatever the background of the listeners, whatever colour their skin, music is an equaliser when they close their eyes.

The Oils played at ANT's Sydney launch and will also help the Townsville chapter when they do a fund-raiser show for young burns victim Tjandamurra O'Shane on September 8.

Garrett is delighted that there has been big support for ANT from country women because in the debates over native title, stolen children and reconciliation, "the soul of the country is up for grabs," he says.

From Sydney Morning Herald Online, by Debra Jopson

(Note: this article has not been approved for reproduction.)