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The Oils Highlight World Tour With Two Canadian Dates

By Keith Sharp

Australia’s prime antagonist rock group, Midnight Oil will highlight a globe trotting world tour to celebrate the release of two box set albums with two Canadian dates on Saturday May 20th at Toronto’s Danforth Theatre and Friday June 2nd at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom.

Titled The Great Circle 2017 tour. Midnight Oil’s classic lineup of lead vocalist Peter Garrett, drummer Rob Hirst, bassist Bones Hillman, guitarist/keyboards Jim Moginie and guitarist Martin Rotsey, will execute their first major tour in two decades to focus on the release of two box sets, the first titled `The Full Tank’ which is a collection of all previous Oils’ albums and EP’s plus `The Overflow Tank’ which also contains 14 hours of previously unreleased material.

Starting with a pub date in Sydney Australia  in April, the Oils will then travel to play five dates in Brazil, 13 gigs in North America, and 15 dates in Europe before returning to finish up with two concerts in New Zealand and a complete 18 date circuit around Australia.

Formed in 1976, the Oils enjoyed world acclaim with their 1985 Diesel And Dust release (featuring their chart-topping) “Beds Are Burning” single before issuing their 1990 Blue Sky Mining record which took a direct dig at companies like EXXON, famously performing a concert in front of the company’s New York head office.

However, Garrett’s political aspirations took over in 2002 and when he was appointed  Minister of The Environment Heritage & Arts in 2004 by incumbent prime minister Kevin Gadd, he stepped away from the band to concentrate on his political career.

But now he’s back and one can only speculate if the band will record future new material but the release of their two box sets plus an further release of a vinyl collection and a rare chance to see the Oils back in action is well worth celebrating.

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