Midnight Oil Announce Reef Benefit Show As Great Circle Tour Kicks Off
It’s exactly one week until Midnight Oil finally launch the homecoming leg of their Great Circle 2017 World Tour in Alice Springs. The iconic rock group has spent the last six months playing more than 50 gigs in 16 countries across six continents. They have played nearly 100 different songs including at least half a dozen that they have never performed onstage before. However the band has clearly still got more surprises up their sleeves.
Today Midnight Oil announced an intimate benefit gig to help protect The Great Barrier Reef and to support reef activism and research. It will happen in Cairns on Friday October 6. Appropriately enough for a group who recently released two collectors box sets housed in recycled steel tanks, this benefit show – dubbed “Oils At The Reef” – will be staged at The Tanks Art Centre. A very limited number of tickets will go on sale via http://frntr.co/MidnightOilREEF at 10:00am this Wednesday September 27 and are limited to strictly two per buyer.
The show will be recorded and filmed for later broadcast by tour partners Triple M and Foxtel’s MAX as part of radio and TV specials that will draw focus to the plight of the greatest natural wonder on this planet – Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. All proceeds from the show will go to a non-partisan scientific research organisation called Great Barrier Reef Legacy. People can find out more about their work at greatbarrierreeflegacy.org
“The Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s most beautiful and intricate ecosystems”, said Oils drummer Rob Hirst. “It’s also a magnet for tourists, and a major contributor to the local economy so the fact that it’s under threat from climate change and unsustainable development should concern all Australians. We believe we should support the work of scientists and listen to them when it comes to what we should do to protect this precious environment.”
The nearly 3000 reefs which make up this amazing organism were declared a Marine Park in 1975 and listed as a World Heritage Site in 1981. Since then State and Federal Governments of all political persuasions have gradually expanded protection culminating in 2012 federal legislation which received bipartisan support to expand the Marine Park system and increase environmental safeguards within it. However those gains have recently been under threat from federal government moves to allow trawling, mining and pipelines in some previously protected areas. Adani’s massive proposed Carmichael coal mine would also place the reef under threat if it was allowed to go ahead both in terms of its huge carbon impact and potential damage from increased shipping traffic. Current land use practices and expansion of industry around the reef also pose unacceptable threats to its health at a time when parts of it are already struggling.
“Midnight Oil have always used our music to talk about things we believe are important”, says band frontman Peter Garrett. “We believe the future of the Great Barrier Reef is clearly on the line. We’re at the eleventh hour for our most important natural asset. As the largest living organism in our world the reef is a treasure of extraordinary beauty itself but it’s also a symbol of greater questions we all have to answer. Some parts of the Reef are already being killed off by catastrophic climate change and other parts would be damaged by bad federal government policy that prioritises short term corporate profit above all else. So we’re looking forward to getting together with our friends in Cairns and all doing our bit to share some information, provoke more conversation and make change while there’s still time.”
Australian fans will get 22 other chances to see the Oils live at last as The Great Circle 2017 Tour winds its way around the country from next Monday through until November 17 when the circle comes to a close back at the Domain in Sydney. While most dates have sold out limited tickets remain for some shows. See http://www.midnightoil.com/tour-dates/#australia or frontiertouring.com/midnightoil for up to the minute info. To avoid being ripped off by online scalpers, PLEASE only buy tickets from the authorised sellers listed on the band’s website. The only authorised re-sale platform for this tour is TWICKETS where fans can buy and sell ‘extra’ tickets at face value. Please click here to access the Twickets Midnight Oil page.
“Oils At The Reef” will not be the first time this year that Midnight Oil has fused live music with causes that matter to them. During the Brazilian leg of their tour they did a guerrilla set aboard the famous Rainbow Warrior to draw focus to the issue of mining on reefs at the mouth of the Amazon River. They also played environmentally oriented events like Switzerland’s Paleo Festival and the Ostrava Festival in the Czech Republic while in Canada they agitated for Greenpeace who are currently fighting a huge legal battle that threatens their very survival in that country.
However, most of 2017 has been spent playing incendiary rock shows which have turned back time for fans across the globe.
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