Explosive!

I pretty much said it all in the title of this post. This is THE BEST live album I have ever heard. I first purchased it back in... well... my last year of elementary school. The cassette was purple! As if that couldn't be any cooler! Anyway... to this day, I can put that album (now a CD) on and still feel as excited as I did as a kid. There's more raw energy on that one CD than most bands could even dream of creating over an entire career. Honestly... it makes me want to move like Peter Garret himself... thrashing around more madly than I ever have at a punk or metal show. It's like an early greatest hits all captured live, so there's never a letdown! I know alot of people don't even like live recordings, but I'm sure this one could change anyones mind. And to think... before the end of this year (2004) we'll even have a live DVD with 2 complete Oils shows on it plus a bonus CD of one of those shows. The Oils might be done now, but this album will continue to destroy anyone elses attempt at a live album! Forever! Hopefully it'll teach a few people along the way as well...

Midnight Oil: the best live band to exist?

Scream In Blue is worth any price. Anyone who has seen Midnight Oil in concert will tell you that the experience can be very itense. And while most live albums out there do not even come close to replicating a live setting, Scream In Blue remains very true to a Midnight Oil show.

The great thing about Midnight Oil's performance quality is that they do not slack on stage. Some bands drive all of their energy into physical antics to the point where their music sounds sloppy and unorganized. Other bands aim for a precise performance and remain stoic on stage. Midnight Oil somehow combines the best of both worlds: they are absolutely crazy on stage but they are incredibly tight and focused.

When it comes to the band's back catalog, the live recordings of early tunes such as Powderworks, Only The Strong, Read About It, and Brave Faces absolutely pound the living daylights out of the studio versions. The more recent songs (at the time) from Diesel & Dust and Blue Sky Mining are a bit more close to their origin, but not without the boost. Even with a song like Sell My Soul, you can't deny that the version found here is stronger.

The uncredited track is splendid. A non-descript album track from 1981's Place Without A Postcard called Burnie gets an acoustic treatment in the studio. And like everything else on the CD, it is a vast improvement from the original recording.

There are no bad songs or weak performances. The energy never lets up. And for the price I see this CD going for nowadays, it is an absolute steal. Buy it.

Screaming the Midnight Oil...live

Scream In Blue Live is taken from these five concerts:

1) Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, 1984
2) Brisbane Boondall Centre, 1990
3) Capitol Theatre, Sydney, 1982
4) 6th Avenue, NY, NY
5) Our Common Future, Darlinghurst, 1989

The title track, originally on their 10,9,8... album, is presented here as a brief instrumental before launching into another song from that same album, the social and political ills outlined in the punkish "Read About It." The opening guitar playing sounds rougher and less polished compared to the studio version and drives the effectiveness of this song. The song of some driven insane by a life of alienation, of a life consisting of eating and sleeping in "Only The Strong" is given a hard-driving treatment and is a very energetic number, ending with some Native American chanting.

The pained viewpoint of an activist fighting a battle against mass media and politicians in "Brave Faces" from Place Without A Postcard with its lively guitar makes for a great performance.

Blue Sky Mining is represented solely by "Stars Of Warburton," where the hallmarks of aborigine culture is being superceded by hypermart malls, industrial technology, and ATMs.

The breakthrough Diesel And Dust is represented by four tracks. "Dreamworld," on white industry encroaching on the free spaces of the aboriginal wilderness. "Beds Are Burning" starts with a speech from Peter Garrett on aborigines living in Australia for 40-60,000 years. "They didn't sell it to anybody...they didn't trade it in for houses up the coast/they had it stolen off of them." Hence, the need to give back some form of recompense to the disenfranchised aborigines. I didn't quite picture this as a good live song, but leaving it off would be a glaring omission. That's followed by "Sell My Soul," on farmers who struggle to keep their heritage and dignity instead of giving in to mechanized industry and expanding cities, and then by "Sometimes," whose guitarwork matched the punk fury of material from the 10,9,8... album, was a definite candidate to do live and its inclusion here is well-chosen. Like "Beds Are Burning," this was taken from Our Common Future.

"You've been trapped in your building all morning with a window that never opens, come and stand underneath this tree and you'll understand what this argument is all about," says Garrett as he gets into "Progress" from the Species Decreases EP, in a denunciation of pollution, world McDonaldization, increased technology resulting in unemployment. As he states quite clearly, "Some say that's progress/I say that's cruel."

"Who needs a stealth bomber?" asks Garrett before launching into the slamming "Hercules," taken from the Species Decreases EP and performed at Brisbane, decries the US military presence in the South Pacific: "Keep us radioactive free/Strike a bell in Hiroshima Park." Indeed, "why sink Pacific Dreams"?

After a drum solo, the group do "Powderworks" from their self-titled debut. This angry tune decries a life of being cheated. The album ends with an uncredited track, a new studio version of "Burnie" from Place Without A Postcard, of someone loving their beach home the way it is: "This is my home/This is my sea/Don't paint it with the future, of factories."

Choosing the most poignant themes echoing the ecological and political danger befalling Earth, Midnight Oil's compilation of live tracks also demonstrates the energy and passion they have in their form of protest rock.