"Finally someone was playing stuff that was musically idiosyncratic, fresh and strong. And authentic. Particular. Peculiar. True to a time and a place and pretty damn defiant about it. They kissed no bum and tugged no forelock." - Tim Winton

They still kiss no bum and they still tug no forelock.

On a November week day in the seaside town of Manly, Rob Hirst watches the boats ferry daily commuters and inquisitive tourists in equal amounts into the suburb's safe embrace; a glittering mix of Minoltas and mobiles, neck heavy or hip fixed, delivered safely to the long arm that juts out on ancient wood piles into the calm bay.

If the great racial divide that threatens to engulf Australia is simmering, you wouldn't know it in Manly, where the toughest decision is which seafood cafe/restaurant/takeaway to grab a smorgasbord from. Manly is a friend. Wealthy, abstemious and comfortable.

For the drummer and co-composer of Midnight Oil, it's an anchor in a life that's seen as many miles as it's seen smiles. And there have been so many of those. The most enduring memory of a legion of Oils gigs is the smiles. That power and passion that Winton speaks so rightfully of in his essay that runs through the body of the slick to 20,000 Watt R.S.L., their new "best of", is the language of anger, concern, involvement and responsibility. Identification is the end result, and with it a feeling of sharing and caring. Of being part of something. The communal. Smiles.

Hirst is even-tempered, adroit at getting across exactly what he wants and ever happy to stick a barb in the gut of the sickly conservative Howard Government, about whom he can find little or nothing to like. "It'd be hard to find something good to say about a government that's wrenching this country back into the worst of its past," he says.

"He should have stopped Pauline Hanson before she got started. He failed to recognise that the proposition she puts to people is very appealing. Hanson also wants to turn the clock back to a racist, White Australia policy, past, but I wonder how much turning back of the clock this country can tolerate.

"Pauline Hanson and the xenophobia she represents, the Wik issue and Howard's refusal to recognise the High Court, the government's downgrading of women's role in society ... they're just the tip of it, the whittling away of ideals we've pretty much held sacred.

"Howard is from Sydney. He forgets the rural communities - it's a dynamic that's been happening for generations. As so many people have observed, the real Australia is outside the cities and Howard just doesn't recognise or understand that. He has no idea of the way those people think, what motivates them, counts for them, the tradition.

Seeing is as always believing. There is a certain myth, a certain legend about the Oils, that makes them seem almost super human; there is another legend which makes them seem like your next door neighbour. "I could go on forever. I guess maybe some of it will come out on the tour." It already has. A quick listen to the Oils steaming and venomous White Skin Black Heart, the first single from the forthcoming. Redneck Wonderland set and the toughest Oils song in a decade, leaves no room for mistakes. White skin ... black heart.

Produced by Magoo, whose work with Regurgitator marks him as the country's most gifted young producer, Redneck Wonderland is being kept secret until early in the New Year but Hirst sums it up in one word. "Tough. Very tough," he says. "It's the toughest record we've made in a while. A head full of aggression, lots of crunching riffs courtesy of Jim (Moginie). Redneck really charges.

"It's anger. And anger unites this band. In the best possible ways. It always has. There's a lot out there at the moment to be angry about. Especially when you see your country going to rack and ruin. Some of it's so tough a commando couldn't touch it." He laughs. You get the feeling Midnight Oil are on a short fuse at the moment. And that's when they're at their very best.

A sort through 20,000 Watt R.S.L. is a reminder of times when the fuse burnt down and the Oils went off. There are the obvious: Power And the Passion, US Forces, Hercules - brute rock songs hurled with the force of committed belief and unrestrained anger; the still obvious: Blue Sky Mine, Beds Are Burning, Truganini, Forgotten Years, Back On The Borderline, Best Of Both Worlds - crafted, rhythmic swells of tunes full of political and social comment yet gracefully redolent of the heart of an Australia few still know; and the also still obvious: Surf's Up Tonight, Dreamworld, Kosciuzsko, The Dead Heart, King Of The Mountain - Australia ... simply Australia from shore to dirt red desert.

Like all good politicians Midnight Oil understand the art of contrast: if you continually whack people over the head all the time in the end they won't feel any pain and will just want to be whacked. The Oils understand subtlety. They understand insinuation. They understand that to warrior souls you have to walk your talk.

"I think you decide early in your career what you want to be. With our pub/RSL roots it would have been easy to just stay in Australia once we'd made an impression," Hirst says. "But we've always been restless and politically motivated. We didn't mind records that were unfocussed and out of time - we just didn't want to make records that were out of time.

"So I guess we realised that the best songs came from touring and that we could get those songs across best by touring. It allowed us to communicate directly with our audience and write songs about Australia from a first-hand experience not so many bands have had. The nostalgia element of touring also enabled us to connect with the country in the same way Robert Hughes does. You actually see it clearer ... and drink a lot more.

"I think it's great to live here but if you don't get out on a regular basis then you cease to see with new eyes. So by combining tours of the inland regions, the heartland, as well as the major cities, with overseas tours we got to see a lot that most people will never see. And we're still seeing, all the time."

At the Equinox Festival on a warm and windy autumn's night early in the year, the Oils returned as the headliners, preceded by a blazing and frightening set by the unmerciful, edgy and dark new age Tool. It wasn't an easy set to follow. The audience was mostly uni indie and alternative kids dragged in by a billing that also featured Skunk Anansie and Blink-182. Most had probably heard of the Oils only by reputation - yet, 8,000 strong still, they stayed after Tool departed. The bars were closing, the smell of reefers diminishing as the dope ran out. But they stayed. Drawn, perhaps by curiosity, perhaps by the irresistible magic that comes with the Oils. Whatever, they stayed.

Backstage it was the family Oil. It was the kids, wives and friends who climbed the steps to the back of the stage first and moved quietly out of eyeview left and right. The band followed a minute or two later, big Peter Garrett towering over his compatriots talking rapidly, smiling, pausing to sign an autograph from a young admirer who wouldn't have been born when the Oils first strode militant, angry and proud into the heart of Australian publand in the late '70s. The moon peaked through a splinter in the clouds, glanced off that still bald head, and for a moment he was caught in his own shadow. The legend seemed to breathe around him.

As Hirst twirled his sticks and Moginie, Rotsey, Hillman chatted amongst themselves they climbed the stairs, Garrett two giant strides behind. They hit the stage to a roar, an unequivocal scream of anticipation and acceptance. Oils were still OILS. Tool towelling down and thirstily recovering from their ordeal a few metres away looked up. They had come but they hadn't conquered. No matter the age or the disposition of the audience, they had come to the land of the Midnight Oil - and in the darkening night with its hidden stars they too began to understand something about the power and the passion of this remarkable band.

Midnight Oil exploded, they went for it, they chased the demons of so-called 'too old' away and they bore down like a great unharnessed force, reaping and tearing in a web meshed of crashing chords, subtle melodies, rants, raves and slamming locomotive breathes.

"It was a good night," Hirst says wryly. "It's good when the band has to prove something. Tool were very good. There was a big audience that hadn't seen the band before. We had some convincing to do."

And convince they did. At some point fire eaters and jugglers came on stage and the Oils just jammed out, building a relentless sea of sound that first splashed, then crashed, then pounded and pulverised the very air. And all around there were smiles. Heads nodded, heads shook, feet tapped, feet stamped, a few diehards moshed, plenty jerked.

Most stood transfixed ... and just smiled.

The Oils probably don't like being icons. At least they've shown that they still like to play. They remain a source of inspiration and irritation. A curiosity to the stranger. A stumbling block unto the wicked. Now and then I hear some old anthem surging out of an open door and in my mind's eye I see red dirt, blue sky, scrunched faces, snot-nosed children, shorebreaks and creekbeds. I see the people I know, the kind of people I try to write about, and the sense of recognition hits me like the backwash from a roadtrain. I see my country (right or wrong). - Tim Winton

From TheI, by Mike Gee

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