Midnight Oil: 1984 (2018) Movie Script
Garrett for Prime Minister!
What a night!
Oh, I can't believe it!
Let's dance.
Midnight Oil Red Sails
Sound roll two, Musical Films and
that was the Oils coming off stage.
Beauty, Michael! Very good.
Fantastic. Isn't it marvellous?
We have a meeting
in the afternoon...
Four hours later,
we're making movies.
Oh, there he is.
God, right on cue.
Almost but not quite
more than we deserve.
This is Ray Argall,
cinema verite.
Mr. Verite.
It is pretty cold
out there still.
Okay.
Well, the stick sounds were
like the other day with the intro
when they changed
back to the bass
after you played the stick.
You hear yourself,
you hear the beat
and then you play like
that, then it will be great.
Perhaps it's easy to forget what it
was actually like back in the early '80s.
That was kind of
our generations fear
that we were about to be
plunged into a nuclear winter
and there was a lot of
saber rattling going on
with Reagan bullishly shirt-fronting
a succession of Russian presidents.
I don't know who it was. Andropov,
Chernenko, whoever it was.
So there was a real
feeling of brinkmanship.
The like of which we hadn't
seen since the very early '60s.
and of course we found
ourselves in Japan.
You know the place where
nukes had actually been used
and got to speak to some of
the Hibakusha, the survivors.
And so all of these things added
up to, you know, song writing,
which could not
avoid that issue.
I think the Red Sails period was a real
period of experimentation with the band.
Where we really wanted
to do something different.
And the nuclear build-up and so on and
so forth had already started to permeate
through into our
thinking and my thinking
about what we might or might not
do, and how someone should respond.
This is the joke about
the presidential elections.
Because on top of the dollar,
it's got "In God we trust," you see.
So, it's better than in a hacko
hillbilly man from California.
I say, "Casper, lets lob
a few on those commies."
I think Ill get cousin Piston Rings
to sing a song for us this afternoon.
Mr. Robert Hirst.
Whoo!
All right, Mr. Garrett,
I want you to tell us
why you decided to
go into show business?
Show business?
We broke away from getting involved
with agencies and record companies,
and everybody, and we
just went to our audience.
We looked at town halls instead
of going through promoters.
You know we started
to promote ourselves,
putting the posters
up ourselves.
And you have got, you know,
a couple of support bands
that will draw 200 people
there, and 300 people there
and you bring it together
with your audience,
and youve got 1,000 people.
All of a sudden the agents are going, "How
did they get 1,000 people to that show?"
And so this whole alternative way
of surviving and having an audience
that wasn't a radio audience,
wasn't a TV audience,
wasn't a top-40 audience, wasn't
a record companys audience.
There was no promoters. You
know, what's going on here?
When do the tickets go
on sale there? Saturday?
Are they on sale tomorrow?
Yeah, Steve. Neil here,
mate. Is Gary there?
Gary has already
given them a grand.
Yeah. You are aware of that?
That is 2,100 bucks.
You want some just general
float cash? For petrol, taxis.
There is 500.
They are going to be paid cash.
Just good value for 300 bucks
for about 50 people to come.
This is an important
seven nights.
Oh, they are all
going to be standard.
2SM City's Rock Of The Ages,
with Charlie Fox talking to Rob Hirst
from Midnight Oil about the new Oils
album called Red Sails in the Sunset.
We're going down with the
new songs on Melbourne people.
We're then going to
Adelaide and Perth.
And we end up at
the Horden Pavilion.
We've kept the price right down.
Its about half, I think, what you are
paying for some of the overseas acts.
That was meaningful
last night. They all knew it.
I think they must
have been paid a lot.
Saxophone, hypocrisy,
democracy and ideology.
Oils! Oils! Oils! Oils!
About four minutes, okay?
You're right, Bastard.
Anyone else in the same trouble?
After the chaos.
Took all that asparagus
to get it out of my system.
All right!
So I started in 1980.
In those days, bands had to
learn their craft the hard way.
So we were playing
on milk crates,
with plywood on top sometimes.
I do corporate now and I
go into rooms with clients
and look at a room and
say, "Will we fit 300 people?"
And I go, "Hey, I can
fit 1,500 people in here
"and still make money
on the door," you know.
There was just this explosive
energy coming off stage.
and the room filled
with that kind of tension
and excitement and
sweat and heat and sound.
And you know the bottom end, the kick
drum would be thumping through your chest.
The heat levels in those pubs, particularly
the ones with the low ceilings,
with a couple of
thousand people smoking
and it was like
running ten marathons
all in the space of an
hour and a half, every night.
We blew the switchboard
off the wall in the pub
and took out the
local sub station.
In those days, the
ceilings used to drip
with condensation
above the audience.
You know, everything
was wet from sweat.
The audience was wet with sweat.
There was no air
conditioning, or anything.
No one could breathe and
Constance, the little tour manager,
was running around
with an oxygen blower
reviving people with oxygen.
It was always really important to this
band to be able to deliver to the audience
and just make it count.
We were about giving that
audience everything that we had.
Everything that was happening on stage,
we wanted to give to them in buckets.
I remember ice-skating
around Prince Alfred Park
when we first moved
from the country to the city.
And they played the
Beatles relentlessly
and then, of course, also
the Stones and the Kinks
and The Who and
Freddie and the Dreamers
and Dave Clark Five and
all those British beat bands,
which influenced people
of our generation so much,
and then got absolutely fascinated by
what was happening musically in the '60s.
They actually wrote
stuff about things.
So if you had a great melody,
and you had great lyrics,
and you had a great beat,
and then you also were talking
about something really important
to ordinary people's lives,
then that was a
killer combination.
And I think it was
quite scary sometimes.
Particularly with
Jim in the corner,
the raw, the rhythm
and the drive.
It wasn't rhythmic
or timely, it was...
It was urgent. It was
urgent and threatening.
It was like, you know, it
would make the hairs stand up
my things thinking
about it, you know.
The power that we could
create when we were in form.
And we were just doing
covers and Rob was the singer.
All the way through school,
and the school concert that we
played at my school was hilarious
because we did a
lunch-time concert.
And in the middle
of the concert,
the head master
ran up on the stage
and just turned all the amps off
and then ran off.
There was about 300 people
in the hall going, "What?"
And you know it was just
what we were dealing with.
Like we were just
schmucks to these people.
Like, you know, the
people at the school
that were really into rugby, and
they were really into sort of the military,
and it was just sort
of not a good place
for a slightly sensitive
and artistic person to be.
The day I was
setting the gear up,
the monitoring engineer,
Mark Edwards, said,
"I'll show you how
everything gets set up,
"and I will show you once, and
that is it. You remember it after that."
And I didn't care. I thought I am
only going to be here for a day.
And as he was setting things up,
I kept asking questions.
I went, "Why are you nailing
the drum kit to the floor?"
Like we had sand bags,
and I had done that before.
And then he was
tuning the monitors,
and he put this small road case at the
base of this really tall microphone stand.
And I said, "What the hell is
the microphone so tall for?"
And he said, "You'll
see, you'll see. "
And they didn't do a
soundcheck that day.
And sure enough,
after the support act,
they went on stage,
and I saw it all
right in the first song.
They fucking destroyed it.
The whole stage near caved in.
You know, I had never
seen anything like it.
Never.
The first encounter
of the first kind
was at the Narrabeen Antler.
This tall bloke
got our curiosity.
Sort of had long blonde hair, and
there was a lot of energy on stage
and there was just a really
interesting feel with the band.
And I said, "Look, you
know, if I can get some shows,
"just started looking for the
rooms on the Northern Beaches
"that we could
get them playing."
You realize, "Wow,
this is emotive."
It is actually generating
a lot of great ideas.
And that will engage debate.
"Call off the ultimatums"
could be stronger.
You don't reckon? Nah.
No, it should be just that
one low or two low choices.
If you do, I reckon they could
be they can be stronger live.
Sounds very pretty.
As I sort of reach back
into the memory vault,
I can remember a bunch of school
boys sitting around, sort of, you know,
frantic little guy, you know,
sort of just out of school
banging away at
the drums, you know?
A couple of shy guys just
out of school playing guitar.
But, it was what
I heard, really,
I think, that got me
more than anything else,
and that was really
the key for me.
And I have always said, you know,
once I heard the kick of the bass drum,
and just heard the
way that they played,
I thought, "You know, there is
something very, very special going on here,
"and who knows
where it will lead?"
Be safe and nuclear-free
in 1985, and remember,
we have a grave international
problem on our hands.
Something called
"Idiot control the world."
Oh, dearie me! Henry
Kissinger is in South America.
It sends the very shivers of all
existence down my large spine.
We're not waiting for any
kind of poise to lay out the food.
We're waiting for Henry and
Co., they've got short memories.
My fellow Americans,
I am pleased to tell you today
that I have signed legislation
that will outlaw Russia forever.
We begin bombing
in five minutes.
I have asked special guest
Mr. Colonel David Hackworth,
who now lives in
Brisbane and Nimbin
and has spent some time
with the United States Army
in Vietnam and Cambodia
to come along and speak.
Put your hands together, please,
for David Hackworth, thank you.
Hello.
Last night, I was asked
on a radio program
why I was talking to you.
And my answer was,
because you are what counts.
Since 1945, there
have been 23 examples
where the US Military
have recommended
to use nuclear weapons.
They have so much firepower,
it is like trying
to kill a mosquito
with a hand grenade.
All you have to do is see a
photo of the victims of Hiroshima
and you'll understand that it can
never be allowed to happen again.
And if everyone stands up and says, "Look
,you know, we think it's very, very wrong.
"And we're prepared to do something
about it, then maybe we can change it."
The reason that
we are here today
is because we value the trees
and the environment
that we sit in.
And we realize that this
environment is put at great risk
by the incredible proliferation
of nuclear weapons in the world.
As a response to that risk, ordinary
Australians have gathered together
and formed the Nuclear
Disarmament Party.
They approached me to
stand as a senate candidate,
and I decided that I would accept
their offer to stand as a candidate.
It doesnt mean the end of Midnight
Oil. Midnight Oil will continue.
All it means is that I am
going that one stage further
to talk about those things, which have
concerned me for a number of years,
which I have tried
to write songs about.
How will you be able
to do anything different
from the people with
principle within the ALP?
It's all very well for the
left wing of the ABC...
Excuse me.
Freudian slip.
It's all very well for
the left wing of the ALP
to put that particular
point of view.
The fact is, in 1984, we have
a pro-nuclear government.
Are you confident of success?
The coming elections? Yes.
Why?
Jean Meltzer in Victoria, who
has been a serving senator
is our candidate in Victoria.
And in discussions that I have managed to
have with her over the last couple of weeks,
she has indicated that
there are lots and lots and lots
and lots of very, very
effective and fruitful ways
which you can operate
from the senate.
Operating from the senate
plugs us into the system.
Are you concerned that
your personality and image
will overshadow what
your party is trying to say?
No, I'm not.
Both the band and myself
are people who have been
prepared to stand on principle,
and this is one
particular principle,
which we have
held to very firmly.
I am now elevating this
principle to the position
I think it should take
for every Australian,
for everybody in the world if we
are going to see the decade out.
We are simply saying the
Nuclear Disarmament Party is here,
the election campaign is on,
and we are going to be successful.
I came into work on the Monday
after the announcement
on the Sunday night
that Pete was going to
be running for the NDP,
and I could not believe
the amount of messages.
I just saw names
from mainstream radio
and TV and press who had never
bothered to contact the Oils before.
Prior to that, we
were just a band.
And he just came to our room and
said, "Look, I am going to do this.
"I am going to
run for politics."
No talk about whether the
band was going to survive or not.
So when you have someone
like that in your band, you have to...
You know, what do you do?
You just embrace it, really.
I think that is what we did,
rather than try and stamp it out
because I mean, you couldn't.
Why would you, anyway?
Like, it was all to do with
who we were as people
and what the band
was talking about.
He was just going to
take it to the next level.
The launching of the
Nuclear Disarmament Party
represents the dawning of a
new age in Australian politics.
Heading the ticket,
we have Peter Garrett,
one of Australia's
foremost musicians,
and a man who for more than a
decade has been fighting for peace,
disarmament and social
justice through his music.
It has been quite an
extraordinary campaign,
and it is quite an
extraordinary political party.
In fact, it is not
really a political party.
It is much more than that.
It is a movement of
people in this country
who have decided that
they really have had enough.
They want to make a
nuclear-free Australia.
And I must admit that there are
times when it seems very chaotic for us.
We're not operating out of the
flashiest premises in the world.
We don't have the
biggest budget in the world.
But we've got heart,
we've got spirit,
we've got hope,
and we've got faith.
And they're the most
important qualities of all.
Around about the time of
Pete's senate campaign,
we thought, "Well, we'll probably
just continue playing in between
"when Pete's
sitting in the senate."
I mean I don't think any of us
thought we were going to end.
It was like, "No, no, we'll just
work around what he is doing."
And we were very
supportive of what Pete did.
I mean there was no one
crying in their beer, or anything.
We were all saying, "Well, that's
the way it goes." Wed made plans.
We knew what we were
going to do if he made it.
Wed effectively campaigned
just by singing songs
against nuclear issues.
I'll do yours quickly.
What's your name?
Mark Schultz.
Mark? Yup.
Thanks a lot. No worries.
There you go, mate.
And remember, tell your Mum and Dad
all about the Nuclear Disarmament Party.
Yeah, I will. Sure.
My Mom is here. Is she?
Yeah. Right.
I think one of the reasons
why Pete wanted
me to get involved
was that I understood
about the band as well.
And trying to fit the twin
constraints of the political campaign
and the tour for the band
was actually really important.
They needed to be
kept quite separate.
For a start, the band
couldn't put out a single
because they didn't want to be seen to
be exploiting Pete's political campaign.
Um, the political campaign
couldnt be seen as trying
to be promoted on the
back of the band's concerts.
The biggest difference
from a crewing point of view
was that the venues had
to be searched every day.
So, we did a deal
with the police.
They weren't allowed
to just turn up any time.
The police made my
road crew very nervous.
Cause they searched everywhere.
They searched under every seat,
they searched the dressing
rooms, the crew room,
the crew room,
which we didn't want.
And they use to search
the audience coming in, too.
That had never happened
at a rock and roll show.
Prior to those
days? Before 1984?
Our major ally plans to
spend 1.6 trillion dollars
on weapons of war
in the next four years.
The re-election of President
Reagan brings Australia's role
and Australia's relationship with the
United States into an even clearer focus.
Midnight Oil, as we all know,
are not ones to shy
away from political issues.
And that culminated last week
in Peter Garrett's endorsement by the
newly formed Nuclear Disarmament Party.
On the musical front,
Midnight Oils new album Red Sails
in the Sunset is in the shops this week.
Their last album, 10, 9, 8,
7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, incidentally,
is still number 51
on the album charts
and has been in the top
100 now for nearly two years.
Ooh, shit, I find that the
hardest number is the highest.
What I am doing at the moment
apart from being on stage for the Oils
is getting around and talking
to as many schools as I can.
We're involved in a historic
time, 1984 is a time of history,
which I invite you
to be involved in.
I don't think that politics
means being old enough to vote.
I don't think politics means
being interested in the difference
between capitalism
and socialism.
I think politics means
understanding that you can change
the way society affects you and
you can change that it doesn't matter
how old you are, you just
have to go out and get in to it.
None of this stuff is
going to come easy.
It is not easy for me to
get up early in the morning
and go out and get on the
road but I believe strongly in it.
The question is if I win the
election what will happen to the Oils
and the answer is that
I will become a Nuclear
Disarmament Party senator
and Midnight Oil will continue
to do what it has done in its way.
Midnight Oil's been
going since 1977.
It's never been a band that has
seen itself up on the top 40 charts.
It's never seen itself as
band which is, you know,
like a pop band that is a Duran
Duran or one of these people.
It's important, I think,
to be on the street
or to be where people are
and a lot of young people
who were interested in us as
a band were actually at school.
I mean schools are really
important places, you know.
This is where kids
are learning, obviously,
but it's also in the later years where
they are developing their thinking
and starting to form up their
political values and their social values.
All those in favour, would
you please raise your right arm.
All those against.
I now declare by unanimous decision,
Manly High, a nuclear-free zone.
I think people felt
like their band was,
um, suddenly very important.
I think they saw the
band taking a stand
in a very public way and
felt quite proud of them.
It was almost like a chance
for the audience to grow up
and see that their concerns
were important as well.
This is historic,
let me tell you.
Girls and boys, we are making
history, and we'll continue to do it.
We were approached to do a street
kids open house foundation concert
prior to my involvement with
the Nuclear Disarmament Party.
There was no way
because an election started
that we were going
to detract from that.
Now, can we get on to this?
No I'd like to
do this. All right.
Okay. Is there gonna be other
questions about the street kids?
Look, I am here to do the Open
Family Foundation press launch
and that's really
what I wanna do
and I don't want to have a token question
about it and then launch into Mr. Hayden.
Look, we've only got
a short amount of time
anyway. Okay. All right.
So despite the constant attacks
from Mr. Hawke and most other people
you're not gonna speak
out on any other issues?
The fact that Mr. Hawke,
Mr. Bjelke-Peterson, Mr. Hayden,
Senator Carrick, Mr. Howard,
Mr. Wentworth, who claims the communists
are still under the bed of the
Nuclear Disarmament Party
are joining
together to attack us
simply shows how effective we're being,
how we've got those politicians running.
They're scared of the votes.
We're concerned about the issue.
Hello, hello,
hello, hello, hello.
Welcome to the tent.
You know, every time that
Midnight Oil gets up out here,
it seems like they've built
another one of those things that, uh,
screech up to the top of the sky
and cast their imposing shadow
over the sunny, sandy terrain.
Yeah, Come on.
If you're not careful it's gonna
get so if you're having a surf
at about 5:00 in the afternoon,
it will be like surfing in the
Grand Canyon or something.
Except that instead
of walls of brown shale
it's gonna be walls of cheap,
wait until everyone has
bought up their timeshare resort,
it'll fall down in 20 years
time home units, so...
I don't think when people
came along at that stage to a gig,
they'd expect someone like that to
kind of, have a microphone and talk.
'Cause usually it was like, "Yeah,
we're gonna go on to our next song
"and here is our
latest single and
"and I wrote this about my girlfriend"
or something. I mean, our stuff
was much more angular
and much more angry.
His voice was an instrument.
His voice was something that
just meshed with the bands sound
and it became a wail.
He was the social
commentator on stage
and I guess that sort of process of
people knowing they're gonna go out.
They're gonna have... they're
gonna see something spontaneous,
they're gonna see something
that reflects their basic attitude
that they can't
put their finger on,
you know, what's
going on around us.
People were seeing themselves within
the music and the lyrics of the band.
They wrote about
their world, their country
um... And how they related
to it and what they thought of it.
We were happy for
people to learn about us
but also about
Australia generally.
About, you know,
political, social,
environmental
situation that we faced.
All right, all right, all right.
Let's calm down a little bit.
Boys and girls.
Anyone who pushes
and carries on down there,
you'll get thrown out
immediately, all right? So...
Wormy, give me a spot down
here at the front down here.
Stage left, just to
the front, please.
A little bit further.
Now, boys, it costs Midnight Oil a fortune
in security guards to come into this place.
I don't want you lot destroying it for
us and for everyone else. All right?
And the next person I
see facing the other way
trying to cause some aggravation,
I'll throw them out myself.
I can't get this mentality.
We've got the fattest, richest,
stupidest people in the whole world,
Russia and America, they
want to blast us to smithereens.
Everyone knows that life
is a precious commodity
and you two want to
kick each other's heads in.
I'm sorry...
- It was a weird thing.
- You know, I would sort of,
look in to a crowd and be able
to tell, you know, which corner
something would come
from and think, "Oh, hang on
"there's a bit of evil
lurking over in that corner."
That's you. And you're gonna
behave for me tonight, aren't ya?
Yeah, all right.
All, right.
Thank you, boys and girls.
We shall have a good time.
I always wanted a
Midnight Oil concert
or a performance to be somewhere
where everybody could come
and feel that they
could be themselves.
And generally they
would listen to him
but if they didn't, or they were
fighting he would send me in there.
You know, knee-high
to a grasshopper,
to diplomatically sort it out
and every now and then he
would come in and rescue me.
Because hed see me in shit
and it was just
going to turn to shit.
But I could go through that audience,
and they were packed together
like, in these
venues, like sardines.
Or I could rush through those, that
audience, anywhere from front to back.
They would get out of the way.
They would assist me getting
through there to do what I had to do.
It was aggression but
it wasn't aggression
like you talk about nowadays.
They weren't... It wasnt fighting
aggression. It was passion.
Yeah, a lot of performers on
stage would be more than reticent
to get up and make a dick
of themselves like he did.
You know? And he knows
what I mean about that.
You can't call that dancing.
No one's ever seen that
style of dancing before.
Mate, they would
just stare at him.
Because I had to keep
checking that first four or five rows
and they would just stare, and it
wasn't because he was good looking.
It wasnt because he had
the body of Adonis. No.
No, it was the dancing.
It was like he was on the dance
floor with them, you know what I mean?
And because, yeah, he held
them in the palm of his hand.
- Mount Druitt.
- We come from Mount Druitt.
We've been Oil's
fans for seven years.
We know they're talking
about that nuclear disarmament
and how one day it's
going to affect us all.
Peter Garrett's gonna be the next
President. Not Prime Minister, President.
He can get everyone
listening to him
because he is cool, and he
cares about peace on earth.
He does. He cares about
our country and everything.
This concert has been one
of the best concerts there is.
- I'm 19.
- I'm 20.
There was a dialogue between
the audience and the band
and we realised that writing about
Australian subjects... uh, would work.
The band could
communicate through its songs
and the power of its
instruments and everything
and then on top of that
you've got Pete communicating
in a brilliant and diverse and,
might I say, initially outrageous way.
One on one.
Initially with pub
crowds of 1,000, 1,500
but then to festival
crowds of 60,000.
It was such a gift.
I thought the audience
were fantastic in that era
because they were excited
about what was happening,
both to the band and
also to the band's singer.
And they listened to the music
and then they went out and, you
know, listened to the campaign.
And they became a part of it
and some of them would
have had very high hopes
and others would have
just been doing it for fun
and everything in between
but that didn't matter, you know.
It was a really unique
and quite powerful
collective experience
that we shared
and I'm really proud of the way in
which people became active players
if you like, in the concert,
in that period of
political engagement
because
it showed that they were thinking
about what we were singing about
but it also showed that they understood
the spirit in which it was being done.
I am not going to talk about
the serious things in the world
like politics except to say I hope that
you all, those of you that came along
and witnessed the Stop the Drop
concert, understood what was going on.
He was very excited
by the idea of being
involved in politics, you know.
He was on top of the
world. He was like, alive
and
effusive and, you know, that's kind
of who he was going to be, you know.
From the public's point of view,
they never really
behaved like pop stars.
Because they didn't do drugs,
they didn't drink
and they didn't whore around.
Now, you don't have to cut any of
that out because that's all good stuff.
The road crew had more
fun than Midnight Oil did.
What happened?
First around North
Adelaide with Mr. Argall.
Get your running
pants on there, boy.
Get your running pants on there.
Got your shorts?
I can see the sort of
running you're gonna do.
In the Ford Falcon.
Peter at the beginning
was always a very
imposing character
but I remember a
conversation he had
saying to all of us, "Look, guys,
I can't do this all on my own.
"You can't just stand
there and play your guitar
"and, you know, your
fancy licks and stuff.
"You've got to come up and help
me cause I can't do it all on my own."
The first great Australian
performer that I saw up close
was JOK, Johnny O'Keefe.
Someone who just,
just screamed and put every
ounce of energy in to this take
and I remember being
so knocked out by it
and I thought, "Fuck, you
know, that's a performer.
That's the level you've got
to give, you know, to do this."
- The speech is called -
We Live In A Nuclear Age,
1984,
George Orwell is
looking nervous.
Actually, it is a pretty
frightening thought, you know.
If some Russian submarine
person has got a bit pissed
and saw something coming
across the radar and panicked
or Mr. Reagan went sleep walking
and accidentally
slipped on the button.
I am making light of it because
we have to laugh about it a little bit
because unless we laugh about it
we don't see the humour in the
position that we've got ourselves into.
And okay I'm getting older and I've
had some success in rock and roll
but I think to myself, if we allow
Russian generals or American generals
or European politicians or
international arms manufacturers
or science and research people,
if we allow them to determine
what the future's gonna be,
then we're stuck with
the consequences.
It's very easy now, sort
of, more than 30 years on
to forget what 1984 was like.
You know, 1984 was, um...
It was Big Brother.
You know, people who had read George
Orwell knew that 1984 meant more than 1984.
The cover of their
album was apocalyptic.
Their songs were apocalyptic.
There were movies
that were apocalyptic.
People feared the consequences
of the nuclear arms race
and they were powerless and
it wasn't really a political issue.
And even it was a bit
naive at the time, I guess.
You know, we were only young
fellows talking about nuclear disarmament
but, you know, really, when you
look at it, it put the issue on the table
for both political parties
to the point where they had
to actually have a look at this
because it did
concern young people.
We are generally not interested
in having nuclear wars on our soil
or certainly being part of
anybody's territory for that matter.
After last night I decided wed make
this barn come to life easily, you know.
- An issue hungry media has
given - Garrett immense exposure.
Twenty-six minutes to 7:00
and my guest in the
studio is Peter Garrett
from Midnight Oil
and would be senator.
And that interest isnt
confined to Australia.
This was an interview for a
Japanese television network.
Just one of several
overseas media outlets
interested in what
the NDP has to say.
Australians need to understand
that they have to get active.
They need to understand if
they want to have some say
over what happens in
the next 10 or 15 years.
They've got to get
out and get involved.
As Garrett threatens
to upset the established
political parties,
it's not surprising
that he has been attacked
for being emotional, naive
and for being a rock star.
Do you think that because you are
well known that people will vote for you
because it is a trendy thing, and they
know who you are rather than the issue
that you're standing for?
Everyone's vote is worthwhile.
Whatever reason they give it.
It is the same as people
coming to a Midnight Oil concert.
I wanted my audience, who I
knew felt strongly about the issue
even if they weren't
articulate about it particularly,
to have an opportunity
to represent that feeling.
I do...
I remember a few
mainstream media individuals
who I guess were stars at
that time having slight hissy fits
like, "Do you know who I am?
"I want to speak
to Peter Garrett."
And in my head I'm going, "Well you never
really wanted to speak to him before."
But it was a difficult time because
the band wasn't the band anymore
because Pete was
gonna be in federal politics
and wasn't able to say "fuck"
anymore or anything like that, you know,
so it was all, it was
all a bit strange.
I guess in a way I was a bit
more, you know, distant from it.
I probably saw it all with a
great deal of suspicion really.
I was sort of, "Well, okay.
Pete's doing this thing
"and there's all these people
buzzing around him who are politicians
"and who have got
something to say.
What I'll do, I'll stick to the music
and I will, as long as I can do that
that's my job in the band.
I will be okay, you know.
I mean, I didn't want to get into
waters that were very unfamiliar to me.
This week Garrett and
his band, Midnight Oil
are performing seven sell out
concerts at Sydney's Horden Pavilion,
to no fewer than 50,000 fans.
And everyone we spoke to
said they would vote for the NDP.
Yay!
He would be a good politician
if he got into it, I reckon.
Will you be voting for him?
Yes.
I'd vote for any nuclear
disarmament party,
whether it was with
Peter Garrett or not.
I, you know, just don't
like nuclear weapons at all.
It is good that someone
is finally standing up for it.
Do you think it's just a
young people's issue?
Definitely not. It's everyone's
issue. Our lives are at stake.
So what sort of a politician
do you think he'll make?
A very good politician.
Are all your friends
voting for him?
Yeah. I reckon.
I have even talked
my grandmother into it.
You're not gonna
get a song today
but that's because I've spent
the last two and a half weeks
talking to television
and radio all the time
but I think it's a good idea
for a surf club to get together
and for those people who
haven't had the opportunity
to get work yet,
they've got to start thinking for
themselves and working through...
I seem to remember Pete
rushing in to rehearsals
and interviews or whatever, you know,
with a huge folder of stuff under his arm
and doing what he had to
do and then rushing out again.
I think the band was kind of
worried at the pace he was going.
I mean, he was up in the morning
on Sunrise or whatever
show it was in those days,
he was out there
spruiking the NDP message.
And then he'd come in at night
and play this cathartic rock show
and somehow be the one in
the band who did the most work
and run around the most
and be in a catatonic state
at the end of the night and then
he'd get up and do it all again.
There was a lot of
pressure within the band,
on the band and also
we were playing at a peak,
we were experimenting,
we were using harmonies
more than we ever had.
The music was complex,
we brought out a lot of brass.
Jim was going from guitar
to keys and back again.
There was a lot of
energy but also quite a lot
of anxiety in the camp about
how things would work out.
I was trying to think through
what would happen if I did win.
How would we manage,
you know, the business of
having a career with a band
and what would it mean
for family life and so on.
Any more tea?
Ultimately, what Pete
did impacted on the band.
Impacted on their careers.
Impacted on the, um, album.
Impacted on the tour.
Pete wasn't so much hanging
out with the band anymore.
I think he was
sort of starting to...
Maybe he was questioning the
whole thing about being a musician
and wanting to do more.
It is not just the kids.
Nor is it just the women.
It is right across
the community,
right across the factions,
from working from the outside
and showing how
strong the mood is
for an anti-nuclear Australia,
then we can really hurt them,
uh, in the only area they
care about: their power.
Have you been able to use the Midnight
Oil tour to do a bit of electioneering?
I am not confusing
the two things.
I am a full time person working
for a nuclear-free Australia
and I'll do that in
whatever way I can.
If it means being a senator,
then I will be a full-time senator.
Soon we realised
the kind of spin
that politicians and some
journalists would put on the situation,
but if they had done
their homework,
they would have realised that this was
a band that was talking political songs
from the very first one on
the first album, Powderworks,
was clearly on the same topic.
That is, you know, the
dangers of nukes and whatever.
'84, '85, we didn't suddenly
jump into another boat
and start swimming a
different way upstream.
Everybody expected
it to crash and burn,
and us not to be able to run
a campaign at the same time.
And then once the
public opinion poll
showed that people
were supportive,
then, ah, they started to take
it a little bit more seriously,
but we were under
attack the whole time.
I think it's possible
that Peter Garrett
will be elected as well as me.
Being a senator in the
balance of power situation
is a full time job,
believe you me,
and I would like to
see an under taking
from Peter Garrett here and now
that if he is elected
to the senate,
he will resign, he
will leave Midnight Oil
and he will drop
his previous career
and he will devote himself full
time to the job of being senator.
Now if he doesn't do that,
if he doesn't front the
people to that extent,
then I think he should
withdraw his nomination now.
Damn my hand and it is so sore.
Everything in the world could
be going wrong, you know.
I mean your lead singer
could be going into politics,
but you would have
this thing, you know,
where it was your thing
and you really loved it,
and I still love playing
with Rob and Martin.
Once we all get in a room,
it is just this
thing that starts
and it is just like
a beautiful thing,
because we just love the
feeling of playing together.
It is a very special thing.
It's... it's...
it's like family.
Just feels like family to me.
I was well supported by the band
and well supported by my
wife and family and my mates.
You know, it meant
such a great deal to me
to know that people
were supporting
what we were doing
and what I was doing.
I just had to get myself there.
You know, I had to
get on to that stage
and, uh, on some nights
after a long days campaigning
it was actually
quite fun, you know,
because it was such a relief,
and the energy of the crowd
and the band was fantastic.
In a more exciting election,
Garrett and his colleagues
could have got lost in the wash.
Instead, they
could create history
and a generation
removed from politics
looks set to be reawakened.
There is a 10,
there is a nine,
there is an eight,
there is a seven.
Six,
five,
four,
three, two, one.
Across town, Mr. Hawke chose
to vote at Coburg State
School in his electorate of Wills.
But even in Hawke territory,
there was the Nuclear
Disarmament Party.
The Nuclear Disarmament Party was
polling something like 7.7% of the vote.
So that is some
sort of a pointer
to what we might expect
to see in the senate later on.
Yes, when the campaigning began
some members
of the Liberal Party
believed that they
had an outside chance
of gaining a senate majority
but that hope seems to
have evaporated somewhat
with the arrival on
the scene of the NDP.
The NDP was formed
five months ago
and still appears as a loose
coalition of anti-nuclear groups
who've consistently demonstrated
against the mining of uranium
and the existence of foreign
defence bases in Australia.
Certainly the government was
worried enough during the campaign
about the slip of
support to the NDP
to push a strong line that
a vote for Garrett or Meltzer
was a wasted vote.
Let's cross over now to
Geraldine and our politicians panel.
I am going to ask
Senator Gareth Evans
whom I know has been
watching the senate poll
obviously with
great interest indeed
whether you really do
think that Peter Garrett
can score as we have been
assessing here in the panel
an extraordinary
number of primary votes
to actually get up?
Well, its certainly looking
that way, Geraldine.
Again we haven't
seen any senate figures
come up but on
the opinion polls...
I was announced at one stage
as having won the seat.
Channel Ten announced
we had won the seat.
The decision-making process
took such a long time,
uh, in which there
were various moments
where we thought
maybe he would get in
and other times where we went,
"No, he probably won't get in."
That in the end it
didn't really matter.
We were prepared
for both outcomes.
And it was an
interesting feeling,
because we didn't
really know the result
until the New Year.
And people, things
started to go back to normal.
We are in Australia.
Weve had an election.
Let's get on with life.
We sing a song for Christmas.
Um, what's that?
Oh, I have got it.
Santa voted for the
NDP, did he? Okay.
There was a little bit of unease
about well what
is next, you know?
What is going to be the outcome?
You know, if Pete gets in.
You see the band was
prepared to lose everything.
They were as one
in terms of the issue.
I mean my view was I
wouldn't stop making music.
Um, but I wasn't quite
sure how I'd keep making it.
Life isn't all
depressing in politics.
There are times when
you have just got to dance.
And when we
came to the election,
the Liberal Party gave their
preferences to the Labor Party,
and the Labor Party gave
their preferences to the Liberals
as a way of keeping Pete
and the Nuclear Disarmament
Party out of power.
And then, at the end
of it I remember going,
"How did he end up losing it?"
But there was also
a feeling of relief,
and I am really, you
know, sorry for Pete
but the other side of me,
the music fan side of me
was like, "Phew," you know.
Good, we can continue on.
That was Petes first venture
into the sort of
political arena.
I think he was glad
that he didn't win it,
and we were all pretty
relieved when he failed.
He didn't actually fail
but as far as to
get the seat, yeah.
Pete didn't really
want to be a senator.
You know, the issue was the
most important thing for him.
He really wanted to see
the issue on the front pages,
which we achieved fantastically.
Um, I think it would
have been terrible
if he had gone to
Canberra as a senator.
Um, but I think what he did
by having a
red-hot go at it, um,
was achieve exactly
what he and everyone else
in the nuclear disarmament
movement really wanted,
which was to make
the issue addressed
and taken more seriously.
Like the Pied Piper,
Mr. Hawke led the children into a
Parliament House committee room.
There was undoubtedly
one common thread
running through the questions.
Why do you continue
mining uranium
when we know it is
used for nuclear bombs?
If there was a nuclear war what
would happen to Australia itself?
Would you have a
nuclear fallout shelter?
Mr. Hawke, you sell
uranium overseas,
so how can you be
sure that it will be used
in a manner that you
want it to be used?
Mr. Hawke told them
about nuclear safe guards
and about Australia's efforts
on nuclear disarmament.
Mr. Hawke had his problems
when he arrived for talks with
Secretary of State George Schultz,
cooperate with the
testing of the MX Missile
and be damned by his own party
or refuse and face criticism
for letting down a major ally.
A decision has
been made by the US
to conduct the MX test
without the use of Australian
support arrangements.
We as a government,
the people of Australia
have played a part
uh, in the maintenance
of systems to ensure
a world which, uh,
is not threatened
with the nuclear holocaust.
The Prime Minister said Australia's
cooperation with the United States
did not entail endorsement
of the controversial
Star Wars weapons system.
He asked for and
received an assurance
that the joint facilities in
Australia would not be used
for anti satellite systems.
And we are sort of coming
up into you know 1988.
We have just come
out of the 1970s
with the referendum for giving
Aboriginals the right to vote
and so you have got this sort
of book ending kind of period
where the Oils emerge
and out of that came
this kind of music dynamic
between the whole
western desert and top end.
I think it gave a
bigger perspective
to what the band was doing.
Experiencing what so many people
in Australia will never
experience first-hand.
That song opened
up a whole new way
of approaching our sound,
and we gradually started
to write songs with space.
Started to see the
band in a different light.
I can still remember a
night at the Zenith in France.
They started Beds Are Burning,
which has got a very
distinctive beginning.
The French audience just
took over Beds Are Burning
and sang the whole song.
The band stopped singing.
But it was word
perfect. It was clear.
The clarity was perfect,
and you couldn't
help but be moved.
I can still remember
the feeling.
I get a little bit tingly
now thinking about it.
Just the memories of
them jumping up and down
singing the words
about Australia
written by Australians.
It was a proud moment.
Well, when the band
finished it was a bit of a shock.
It was a struggle in some
ways to adjust to the real world
because I think being
in the band it is like,
a bit like adolescence
or childhood.
When the band ends, that is
when you actually have to grow up.
Because people are
telling you where to go
and they are giving
you the passports
and they are giving
you the food, the hotel,
but after that ends
you have to kind of
figure it out for yourself,
and, um, you know, I
have actually enjoyed...
I enjoyed the band, but I
enjoyed not having the band, too.
For me at least
there was a sense
that we would
go round in circles
if at least I didn't break
out and do something else,
and I think everybody had thought
about it at one point or another,
but I was the one that went.
I understood the
need for breaks,
because I think that was
actually why we survived
for all that time was we did
take breaks from each other.
So why not take a longer break.
You know, why do we have to
call, quit, the whole thing quits.
So I didn't get it.
Because I, um,
I didn't feel that
the band was ready
to say goodbye to anyone.
Including each other.
Thanks very much everybody.
It is time for us
to say good night.
Be good to one another and
take it easy on the way home.
We will see you in some disguise
in 1985.
What a night!
Oh, I can't believe it!
Let's dance.
Midnight Oil Red Sails
Sound roll two, Musical Films and
that was the Oils coming off stage.
Beauty, Michael! Very good.
Fantastic. Isn't it marvellous?
We have a meeting
in the afternoon...
Four hours later,
we're making movies.
Oh, there he is.
God, right on cue.
Almost but not quite
more than we deserve.
This is Ray Argall,
cinema verite.
Mr. Verite.
It is pretty cold
out there still.
Okay.
Well, the stick sounds were
like the other day with the intro
when they changed
back to the bass
after you played the stick.
You hear yourself,
you hear the beat
and then you play like
that, then it will be great.
Perhaps it's easy to forget what it
was actually like back in the early '80s.
That was kind of
our generations fear
that we were about to be
plunged into a nuclear winter
and there was a lot of
saber rattling going on
with Reagan bullishly shirt-fronting
a succession of Russian presidents.
I don't know who it was. Andropov,
Chernenko, whoever it was.
So there was a real
feeling of brinkmanship.
The like of which we hadn't
seen since the very early '60s.
and of course we found
ourselves in Japan.
You know the place where
nukes had actually been used
and got to speak to some of
the Hibakusha, the survivors.
And so all of these things added
up to, you know, song writing,
which could not
avoid that issue.
I think the Red Sails period was a real
period of experimentation with the band.
Where we really wanted
to do something different.
And the nuclear build-up and so on and
so forth had already started to permeate
through into our
thinking and my thinking
about what we might or might not
do, and how someone should respond.
This is the joke about
the presidential elections.
Because on top of the dollar,
it's got "In God we trust," you see.
So, it's better than in a hacko
hillbilly man from California.
I say, "Casper, lets lob
a few on those commies."
I think Ill get cousin Piston Rings
to sing a song for us this afternoon.
Mr. Robert Hirst.
Whoo!
All right, Mr. Garrett,
I want you to tell us
why you decided to
go into show business?
Show business?
We broke away from getting involved
with agencies and record companies,
and everybody, and we
just went to our audience.
We looked at town halls instead
of going through promoters.
You know we started
to promote ourselves,
putting the posters
up ourselves.
And you have got, you know,
a couple of support bands
that will draw 200 people
there, and 300 people there
and you bring it together
with your audience,
and youve got 1,000 people.
All of a sudden the agents are going, "How
did they get 1,000 people to that show?"
And so this whole alternative way
of surviving and having an audience
that wasn't a radio audience,
wasn't a TV audience,
wasn't a top-40 audience, wasn't
a record companys audience.
There was no promoters. You
know, what's going on here?
When do the tickets go
on sale there? Saturday?
Are they on sale tomorrow?
Yeah, Steve. Neil here,
mate. Is Gary there?
Gary has already
given them a grand.
Yeah. You are aware of that?
That is 2,100 bucks.
You want some just general
float cash? For petrol, taxis.
There is 500.
They are going to be paid cash.
Just good value for 300 bucks
for about 50 people to come.
This is an important
seven nights.
Oh, they are all
going to be standard.
2SM City's Rock Of The Ages,
with Charlie Fox talking to Rob Hirst
from Midnight Oil about the new Oils
album called Red Sails in the Sunset.
We're going down with the
new songs on Melbourne people.
We're then going to
Adelaide and Perth.
And we end up at
the Horden Pavilion.
We've kept the price right down.
Its about half, I think, what you are
paying for some of the overseas acts.
That was meaningful
last night. They all knew it.
I think they must
have been paid a lot.
Saxophone, hypocrisy,
democracy and ideology.
Oils! Oils! Oils! Oils!
About four minutes, okay?
You're right, Bastard.
Anyone else in the same trouble?
After the chaos.
Took all that asparagus
to get it out of my system.
All right!
So I started in 1980.
In those days, bands had to
learn their craft the hard way.
So we were playing
on milk crates,
with plywood on top sometimes.
I do corporate now and I
go into rooms with clients
and look at a room and
say, "Will we fit 300 people?"
And I go, "Hey, I can
fit 1,500 people in here
"and still make money
on the door," you know.
There was just this explosive
energy coming off stage.
and the room filled
with that kind of tension
and excitement and
sweat and heat and sound.
And you know the bottom end, the kick
drum would be thumping through your chest.
The heat levels in those pubs, particularly
the ones with the low ceilings,
with a couple of
thousand people smoking
and it was like
running ten marathons
all in the space of an
hour and a half, every night.
We blew the switchboard
off the wall in the pub
and took out the
local sub station.
In those days, the
ceilings used to drip
with condensation
above the audience.
You know, everything
was wet from sweat.
The audience was wet with sweat.
There was no air
conditioning, or anything.
No one could breathe and
Constance, the little tour manager,
was running around
with an oxygen blower
reviving people with oxygen.
It was always really important to this
band to be able to deliver to the audience
and just make it count.
We were about giving that
audience everything that we had.
Everything that was happening on stage,
we wanted to give to them in buckets.
I remember ice-skating
around Prince Alfred Park
when we first moved
from the country to the city.
And they played the
Beatles relentlessly
and then, of course, also
the Stones and the Kinks
and The Who and
Freddie and the Dreamers
and Dave Clark Five and
all those British beat bands,
which influenced people
of our generation so much,
and then got absolutely fascinated by
what was happening musically in the '60s.
They actually wrote
stuff about things.
So if you had a great melody,
and you had great lyrics,
and you had a great beat,
and then you also were talking
about something really important
to ordinary people's lives,
then that was a
killer combination.
And I think it was
quite scary sometimes.
Particularly with
Jim in the corner,
the raw, the rhythm
and the drive.
It wasn't rhythmic
or timely, it was...
It was urgent. It was
urgent and threatening.
It was like, you know, it
would make the hairs stand up
my things thinking
about it, you know.
The power that we could
create when we were in form.
And we were just doing
covers and Rob was the singer.
All the way through school,
and the school concert that we
played at my school was hilarious
because we did a
lunch-time concert.
And in the middle
of the concert,
the head master
ran up on the stage
and just turned all the amps off
and then ran off.
There was about 300 people
in the hall going, "What?"
And you know it was just
what we were dealing with.
Like we were just
schmucks to these people.
Like, you know, the
people at the school
that were really into rugby, and
they were really into sort of the military,
and it was just sort
of not a good place
for a slightly sensitive
and artistic person to be.
The day I was
setting the gear up,
the monitoring engineer,
Mark Edwards, said,
"I'll show you how
everything gets set up,
"and I will show you once, and
that is it. You remember it after that."
And I didn't care. I thought I am
only going to be here for a day.
And as he was setting things up,
I kept asking questions.
I went, "Why are you nailing
the drum kit to the floor?"
Like we had sand bags,
and I had done that before.
And then he was
tuning the monitors,
and he put this small road case at the
base of this really tall microphone stand.
And I said, "What the hell is
the microphone so tall for?"
And he said, "You'll
see, you'll see. "
And they didn't do a
soundcheck that day.
And sure enough,
after the support act,
they went on stage,
and I saw it all
right in the first song.
They fucking destroyed it.
The whole stage near caved in.
You know, I had never
seen anything like it.
Never.
The first encounter
of the first kind
was at the Narrabeen Antler.
This tall bloke
got our curiosity.
Sort of had long blonde hair, and
there was a lot of energy on stage
and there was just a really
interesting feel with the band.
And I said, "Look, you
know, if I can get some shows,
"just started looking for the
rooms on the Northern Beaches
"that we could
get them playing."
You realize, "Wow,
this is emotive."
It is actually generating
a lot of great ideas.
And that will engage debate.
"Call off the ultimatums"
could be stronger.
You don't reckon? Nah.
No, it should be just that
one low or two low choices.
If you do, I reckon they could
be they can be stronger live.
Sounds very pretty.
As I sort of reach back
into the memory vault,
I can remember a bunch of school
boys sitting around, sort of, you know,
frantic little guy, you know,
sort of just out of school
banging away at
the drums, you know?
A couple of shy guys just
out of school playing guitar.
But, it was what
I heard, really,
I think, that got me
more than anything else,
and that was really
the key for me.
And I have always said, you know,
once I heard the kick of the bass drum,
and just heard the
way that they played,
I thought, "You know, there is
something very, very special going on here,
"and who knows
where it will lead?"
Be safe and nuclear-free
in 1985, and remember,
we have a grave international
problem on our hands.
Something called
"Idiot control the world."
Oh, dearie me! Henry
Kissinger is in South America.
It sends the very shivers of all
existence down my large spine.
We're not waiting for any
kind of poise to lay out the food.
We're waiting for Henry and
Co., they've got short memories.
My fellow Americans,
I am pleased to tell you today
that I have signed legislation
that will outlaw Russia forever.
We begin bombing
in five minutes.
I have asked special guest
Mr. Colonel David Hackworth,
who now lives in
Brisbane and Nimbin
and has spent some time
with the United States Army
in Vietnam and Cambodia
to come along and speak.
Put your hands together, please,
for David Hackworth, thank you.
Hello.
Last night, I was asked
on a radio program
why I was talking to you.
And my answer was,
because you are what counts.
Since 1945, there
have been 23 examples
where the US Military
have recommended
to use nuclear weapons.
They have so much firepower,
it is like trying
to kill a mosquito
with a hand grenade.
All you have to do is see a
photo of the victims of Hiroshima
and you'll understand that it can
never be allowed to happen again.
And if everyone stands up and says, "Look
,you know, we think it's very, very wrong.
"And we're prepared to do something
about it, then maybe we can change it."
The reason that
we are here today
is because we value the trees
and the environment
that we sit in.
And we realize that this
environment is put at great risk
by the incredible proliferation
of nuclear weapons in the world.
As a response to that risk, ordinary
Australians have gathered together
and formed the Nuclear
Disarmament Party.
They approached me to
stand as a senate candidate,
and I decided that I would accept
their offer to stand as a candidate.
It doesnt mean the end of Midnight
Oil. Midnight Oil will continue.
All it means is that I am
going that one stage further
to talk about those things, which have
concerned me for a number of years,
which I have tried
to write songs about.
How will you be able
to do anything different
from the people with
principle within the ALP?
It's all very well for the
left wing of the ABC...
Excuse me.
Freudian slip.
It's all very well for
the left wing of the ALP
to put that particular
point of view.
The fact is, in 1984, we have
a pro-nuclear government.
Are you confident of success?
The coming elections? Yes.
Why?
Jean Meltzer in Victoria, who
has been a serving senator
is our candidate in Victoria.
And in discussions that I have managed to
have with her over the last couple of weeks,
she has indicated that
there are lots and lots and lots
and lots of very, very
effective and fruitful ways
which you can operate
from the senate.
Operating from the senate
plugs us into the system.
Are you concerned that
your personality and image
will overshadow what
your party is trying to say?
No, I'm not.
Both the band and myself
are people who have been
prepared to stand on principle,
and this is one
particular principle,
which we have
held to very firmly.
I am now elevating this
principle to the position
I think it should take
for every Australian,
for everybody in the world if we
are going to see the decade out.
We are simply saying the
Nuclear Disarmament Party is here,
the election campaign is on,
and we are going to be successful.
I came into work on the Monday
after the announcement
on the Sunday night
that Pete was going to
be running for the NDP,
and I could not believe
the amount of messages.
I just saw names
from mainstream radio
and TV and press who had never
bothered to contact the Oils before.
Prior to that, we
were just a band.
And he just came to our room and
said, "Look, I am going to do this.
"I am going to
run for politics."
No talk about whether the
band was going to survive or not.
So when you have someone
like that in your band, you have to...
You know, what do you do?
You just embrace it, really.
I think that is what we did,
rather than try and stamp it out
because I mean, you couldn't.
Why would you, anyway?
Like, it was all to do with
who we were as people
and what the band
was talking about.
He was just going to
take it to the next level.
The launching of the
Nuclear Disarmament Party
represents the dawning of a
new age in Australian politics.
Heading the ticket,
we have Peter Garrett,
one of Australia's
foremost musicians,
and a man who for more than a
decade has been fighting for peace,
disarmament and social
justice through his music.
It has been quite an
extraordinary campaign,
and it is quite an
extraordinary political party.
In fact, it is not
really a political party.
It is much more than that.
It is a movement of
people in this country
who have decided that
they really have had enough.
They want to make a
nuclear-free Australia.
And I must admit that there are
times when it seems very chaotic for us.
We're not operating out of the
flashiest premises in the world.
We don't have the
biggest budget in the world.
But we've got heart,
we've got spirit,
we've got hope,
and we've got faith.
And they're the most
important qualities of all.
Around about the time of
Pete's senate campaign,
we thought, "Well, we'll probably
just continue playing in between
"when Pete's
sitting in the senate."
I mean I don't think any of us
thought we were going to end.
It was like, "No, no, we'll just
work around what he is doing."
And we were very
supportive of what Pete did.
I mean there was no one
crying in their beer, or anything.
We were all saying, "Well, that's
the way it goes." Wed made plans.
We knew what we were
going to do if he made it.
Wed effectively campaigned
just by singing songs
against nuclear issues.
I'll do yours quickly.
What's your name?
Mark Schultz.
Mark? Yup.
Thanks a lot. No worries.
There you go, mate.
And remember, tell your Mum and Dad
all about the Nuclear Disarmament Party.
Yeah, I will. Sure.
My Mom is here. Is she?
Yeah. Right.
I think one of the reasons
why Pete wanted
me to get involved
was that I understood
about the band as well.
And trying to fit the twin
constraints of the political campaign
and the tour for the band
was actually really important.
They needed to be
kept quite separate.
For a start, the band
couldn't put out a single
because they didn't want to be seen to
be exploiting Pete's political campaign.
Um, the political campaign
couldnt be seen as trying
to be promoted on the
back of the band's concerts.
The biggest difference
from a crewing point of view
was that the venues had
to be searched every day.
So, we did a deal
with the police.
They weren't allowed
to just turn up any time.
The police made my
road crew very nervous.
Cause they searched everywhere.
They searched under every seat,
they searched the dressing
rooms, the crew room,
the crew room,
which we didn't want.
And they use to search
the audience coming in, too.
That had never happened
at a rock and roll show.
Prior to those
days? Before 1984?
Our major ally plans to
spend 1.6 trillion dollars
on weapons of war
in the next four years.
The re-election of President
Reagan brings Australia's role
and Australia's relationship with the
United States into an even clearer focus.
Midnight Oil, as we all know,
are not ones to shy
away from political issues.
And that culminated last week
in Peter Garrett's endorsement by the
newly formed Nuclear Disarmament Party.
On the musical front,
Midnight Oils new album Red Sails
in the Sunset is in the shops this week.
Their last album, 10, 9, 8,
7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, incidentally,
is still number 51
on the album charts
and has been in the top
100 now for nearly two years.
Ooh, shit, I find that the
hardest number is the highest.
What I am doing at the moment
apart from being on stage for the Oils
is getting around and talking
to as many schools as I can.
We're involved in a historic
time, 1984 is a time of history,
which I invite you
to be involved in.
I don't think that politics
means being old enough to vote.
I don't think politics means
being interested in the difference
between capitalism
and socialism.
I think politics means
understanding that you can change
the way society affects you and
you can change that it doesn't matter
how old you are, you just
have to go out and get in to it.
None of this stuff is
going to come easy.
It is not easy for me to
get up early in the morning
and go out and get on the
road but I believe strongly in it.
The question is if I win the
election what will happen to the Oils
and the answer is that
I will become a Nuclear
Disarmament Party senator
and Midnight Oil will continue
to do what it has done in its way.
Midnight Oil's been
going since 1977.
It's never been a band that has
seen itself up on the top 40 charts.
It's never seen itself as
band which is, you know,
like a pop band that is a Duran
Duran or one of these people.
It's important, I think,
to be on the street
or to be where people are
and a lot of young people
who were interested in us as
a band were actually at school.
I mean schools are really
important places, you know.
This is where kids
are learning, obviously,
but it's also in the later years where
they are developing their thinking
and starting to form up their
political values and their social values.
All those in favour, would
you please raise your right arm.
All those against.
I now declare by unanimous decision,
Manly High, a nuclear-free zone.
I think people felt
like their band was,
um, suddenly very important.
I think they saw the
band taking a stand
in a very public way and
felt quite proud of them.
It was almost like a chance
for the audience to grow up
and see that their concerns
were important as well.
This is historic,
let me tell you.
Girls and boys, we are making
history, and we'll continue to do it.
We were approached to do a street
kids open house foundation concert
prior to my involvement with
the Nuclear Disarmament Party.
There was no way
because an election started
that we were going
to detract from that.
Now, can we get on to this?
No I'd like to
do this. All right.
Okay. Is there gonna be other
questions about the street kids?
Look, I am here to do the Open
Family Foundation press launch
and that's really
what I wanna do
and I don't want to have a token question
about it and then launch into Mr. Hayden.
Look, we've only got
a short amount of time
anyway. Okay. All right.
So despite the constant attacks
from Mr. Hawke and most other people
you're not gonna speak
out on any other issues?
The fact that Mr. Hawke,
Mr. Bjelke-Peterson, Mr. Hayden,
Senator Carrick, Mr. Howard,
Mr. Wentworth, who claims the communists
are still under the bed of the
Nuclear Disarmament Party
are joining
together to attack us
simply shows how effective we're being,
how we've got those politicians running.
They're scared of the votes.
We're concerned about the issue.
Hello, hello,
hello, hello, hello.
Welcome to the tent.
You know, every time that
Midnight Oil gets up out here,
it seems like they've built
another one of those things that, uh,
screech up to the top of the sky
and cast their imposing shadow
over the sunny, sandy terrain.
Yeah, Come on.
If you're not careful it's gonna
get so if you're having a surf
at about 5:00 in the afternoon,
it will be like surfing in the
Grand Canyon or something.
Except that instead
of walls of brown shale
it's gonna be walls of cheap,
wait until everyone has
bought up their timeshare resort,
it'll fall down in 20 years
time home units, so...
I don't think when people
came along at that stage to a gig,
they'd expect someone like that to
kind of, have a microphone and talk.
'Cause usually it was like, "Yeah,
we're gonna go on to our next song
"and here is our
latest single and
"and I wrote this about my girlfriend"
or something. I mean, our stuff
was much more angular
and much more angry.
His voice was an instrument.
His voice was something that
just meshed with the bands sound
and it became a wail.
He was the social
commentator on stage
and I guess that sort of process of
people knowing they're gonna go out.
They're gonna have... they're
gonna see something spontaneous,
they're gonna see something
that reflects their basic attitude
that they can't
put their finger on,
you know, what's
going on around us.
People were seeing themselves within
the music and the lyrics of the band.
They wrote about
their world, their country
um... And how they related
to it and what they thought of it.
We were happy for
people to learn about us
but also about
Australia generally.
About, you know,
political, social,
environmental
situation that we faced.
All right, all right, all right.
Let's calm down a little bit.
Boys and girls.
Anyone who pushes
and carries on down there,
you'll get thrown out
immediately, all right? So...
Wormy, give me a spot down
here at the front down here.
Stage left, just to
the front, please.
A little bit further.
Now, boys, it costs Midnight Oil a fortune
in security guards to come into this place.
I don't want you lot destroying it for
us and for everyone else. All right?
And the next person I
see facing the other way
trying to cause some aggravation,
I'll throw them out myself.
I can't get this mentality.
We've got the fattest, richest,
stupidest people in the whole world,
Russia and America, they
want to blast us to smithereens.
Everyone knows that life
is a precious commodity
and you two want to
kick each other's heads in.
I'm sorry...
- It was a weird thing.
- You know, I would sort of,
look in to a crowd and be able
to tell, you know, which corner
something would come
from and think, "Oh, hang on
"there's a bit of evil
lurking over in that corner."
That's you. And you're gonna
behave for me tonight, aren't ya?
Yeah, all right.
All, right.
Thank you, boys and girls.
We shall have a good time.
I always wanted a
Midnight Oil concert
or a performance to be somewhere
where everybody could come
and feel that they
could be themselves.
And generally they
would listen to him
but if they didn't, or they were
fighting he would send me in there.
You know, knee-high
to a grasshopper,
to diplomatically sort it out
and every now and then he
would come in and rescue me.
Because hed see me in shit
and it was just
going to turn to shit.
But I could go through that audience,
and they were packed together
like, in these
venues, like sardines.
Or I could rush through those, that
audience, anywhere from front to back.
They would get out of the way.
They would assist me getting
through there to do what I had to do.
It was aggression but
it wasn't aggression
like you talk about nowadays.
They weren't... It wasnt fighting
aggression. It was passion.
Yeah, a lot of performers on
stage would be more than reticent
to get up and make a dick
of themselves like he did.
You know? And he knows
what I mean about that.
You can't call that dancing.
No one's ever seen that
style of dancing before.
Mate, they would
just stare at him.
Because I had to keep
checking that first four or five rows
and they would just stare, and it
wasn't because he was good looking.
It wasnt because he had
the body of Adonis. No.
No, it was the dancing.
It was like he was on the dance
floor with them, you know what I mean?
And because, yeah, he held
them in the palm of his hand.
- Mount Druitt.
- We come from Mount Druitt.
We've been Oil's
fans for seven years.
We know they're talking
about that nuclear disarmament
and how one day it's
going to affect us all.
Peter Garrett's gonna be the next
President. Not Prime Minister, President.
He can get everyone
listening to him
because he is cool, and he
cares about peace on earth.
He does. He cares about
our country and everything.
This concert has been one
of the best concerts there is.
- I'm 19.
- I'm 20.
There was a dialogue between
the audience and the band
and we realised that writing about
Australian subjects... uh, would work.
The band could
communicate through its songs
and the power of its
instruments and everything
and then on top of that
you've got Pete communicating
in a brilliant and diverse and,
might I say, initially outrageous way.
One on one.
Initially with pub
crowds of 1,000, 1,500
but then to festival
crowds of 60,000.
It was such a gift.
I thought the audience
were fantastic in that era
because they were excited
about what was happening,
both to the band and
also to the band's singer.
And they listened to the music
and then they went out and, you
know, listened to the campaign.
And they became a part of it
and some of them would
have had very high hopes
and others would have
just been doing it for fun
and everything in between
but that didn't matter, you know.
It was a really unique
and quite powerful
collective experience
that we shared
and I'm really proud of the way in
which people became active players
if you like, in the concert,
in that period of
political engagement
because
it showed that they were thinking
about what we were singing about
but it also showed that they understood
the spirit in which it was being done.
I am not going to talk about
the serious things in the world
like politics except to say I hope that
you all, those of you that came along
and witnessed the Stop the Drop
concert, understood what was going on.
He was very excited
by the idea of being
involved in politics, you know.
He was on top of the
world. He was like, alive
and
effusive and, you know, that's kind
of who he was going to be, you know.
From the public's point of view,
they never really
behaved like pop stars.
Because they didn't do drugs,
they didn't drink
and they didn't whore around.
Now, you don't have to cut any of
that out because that's all good stuff.
The road crew had more
fun than Midnight Oil did.
What happened?
First around North
Adelaide with Mr. Argall.
Get your running
pants on there, boy.
Get your running pants on there.
Got your shorts?
I can see the sort of
running you're gonna do.
In the Ford Falcon.
Peter at the beginning
was always a very
imposing character
but I remember a
conversation he had
saying to all of us, "Look, guys,
I can't do this all on my own.
"You can't just stand
there and play your guitar
"and, you know, your
fancy licks and stuff.
"You've got to come up and help
me cause I can't do it all on my own."
The first great Australian
performer that I saw up close
was JOK, Johnny O'Keefe.
Someone who just,
just screamed and put every
ounce of energy in to this take
and I remember being
so knocked out by it
and I thought, "Fuck, you
know, that's a performer.
That's the level you've got
to give, you know, to do this."
- The speech is called -
We Live In A Nuclear Age,
1984,
George Orwell is
looking nervous.
Actually, it is a pretty
frightening thought, you know.
If some Russian submarine
person has got a bit pissed
and saw something coming
across the radar and panicked
or Mr. Reagan went sleep walking
and accidentally
slipped on the button.
I am making light of it because
we have to laugh about it a little bit
because unless we laugh about it
we don't see the humour in the
position that we've got ourselves into.
And okay I'm getting older and I've
had some success in rock and roll
but I think to myself, if we allow
Russian generals or American generals
or European politicians or
international arms manufacturers
or science and research people,
if we allow them to determine
what the future's gonna be,
then we're stuck with
the consequences.
It's very easy now, sort
of, more than 30 years on
to forget what 1984 was like.
You know, 1984 was, um...
It was Big Brother.
You know, people who had read George
Orwell knew that 1984 meant more than 1984.
The cover of their
album was apocalyptic.
Their songs were apocalyptic.
There were movies
that were apocalyptic.
People feared the consequences
of the nuclear arms race
and they were powerless and
it wasn't really a political issue.
And even it was a bit
naive at the time, I guess.
You know, we were only young
fellows talking about nuclear disarmament
but, you know, really, when you
look at it, it put the issue on the table
for both political parties
to the point where they had
to actually have a look at this
because it did
concern young people.
We are generally not interested
in having nuclear wars on our soil
or certainly being part of
anybody's territory for that matter.
After last night I decided wed make
this barn come to life easily, you know.
- An issue hungry media has
given - Garrett immense exposure.
Twenty-six minutes to 7:00
and my guest in the
studio is Peter Garrett
from Midnight Oil
and would be senator.
And that interest isnt
confined to Australia.
This was an interview for a
Japanese television network.
Just one of several
overseas media outlets
interested in what
the NDP has to say.
Australians need to understand
that they have to get active.
They need to understand if
they want to have some say
over what happens in
the next 10 or 15 years.
They've got to get
out and get involved.
As Garrett threatens
to upset the established
political parties,
it's not surprising
that he has been attacked
for being emotional, naive
and for being a rock star.
Do you think that because you are
well known that people will vote for you
because it is a trendy thing, and they
know who you are rather than the issue
that you're standing for?
Everyone's vote is worthwhile.
Whatever reason they give it.
It is the same as people
coming to a Midnight Oil concert.
I wanted my audience, who I
knew felt strongly about the issue
even if they weren't
articulate about it particularly,
to have an opportunity
to represent that feeling.
I do...
I remember a few
mainstream media individuals
who I guess were stars at
that time having slight hissy fits
like, "Do you know who I am?
"I want to speak
to Peter Garrett."
And in my head I'm going, "Well you never
really wanted to speak to him before."
But it was a difficult time because
the band wasn't the band anymore
because Pete was
gonna be in federal politics
and wasn't able to say "fuck"
anymore or anything like that, you know,
so it was all, it was
all a bit strange.
I guess in a way I was a bit
more, you know, distant from it.
I probably saw it all with a
great deal of suspicion really.
I was sort of, "Well, okay.
Pete's doing this thing
"and there's all these people
buzzing around him who are politicians
"and who have got
something to say.
What I'll do, I'll stick to the music
and I will, as long as I can do that
that's my job in the band.
I will be okay, you know.
I mean, I didn't want to get into
waters that were very unfamiliar to me.
This week Garrett and
his band, Midnight Oil
are performing seven sell out
concerts at Sydney's Horden Pavilion,
to no fewer than 50,000 fans.
And everyone we spoke to
said they would vote for the NDP.
Yay!
He would be a good politician
if he got into it, I reckon.
Will you be voting for him?
Yes.
I'd vote for any nuclear
disarmament party,
whether it was with
Peter Garrett or not.
I, you know, just don't
like nuclear weapons at all.
It is good that someone
is finally standing up for it.
Do you think it's just a
young people's issue?
Definitely not. It's everyone's
issue. Our lives are at stake.
So what sort of a politician
do you think he'll make?
A very good politician.
Are all your friends
voting for him?
Yeah. I reckon.
I have even talked
my grandmother into it.
You're not gonna
get a song today
but that's because I've spent
the last two and a half weeks
talking to television
and radio all the time
but I think it's a good idea
for a surf club to get together
and for those people who
haven't had the opportunity
to get work yet,
they've got to start thinking for
themselves and working through...
I seem to remember Pete
rushing in to rehearsals
and interviews or whatever, you know,
with a huge folder of stuff under his arm
and doing what he had to
do and then rushing out again.
I think the band was kind of
worried at the pace he was going.
I mean, he was up in the morning
on Sunrise or whatever
show it was in those days,
he was out there
spruiking the NDP message.
And then he'd come in at night
and play this cathartic rock show
and somehow be the one in
the band who did the most work
and run around the most
and be in a catatonic state
at the end of the night and then
he'd get up and do it all again.
There was a lot of
pressure within the band,
on the band and also
we were playing at a peak,
we were experimenting,
we were using harmonies
more than we ever had.
The music was complex,
we brought out a lot of brass.
Jim was going from guitar
to keys and back again.
There was a lot of
energy but also quite a lot
of anxiety in the camp about
how things would work out.
I was trying to think through
what would happen if I did win.
How would we manage,
you know, the business of
having a career with a band
and what would it mean
for family life and so on.
Any more tea?
Ultimately, what Pete
did impacted on the band.
Impacted on their careers.
Impacted on the, um, album.
Impacted on the tour.
Pete wasn't so much hanging
out with the band anymore.
I think he was
sort of starting to...
Maybe he was questioning the
whole thing about being a musician
and wanting to do more.
It is not just the kids.
Nor is it just the women.
It is right across
the community,
right across the factions,
from working from the outside
and showing how
strong the mood is
for an anti-nuclear Australia,
then we can really hurt them,
uh, in the only area they
care about: their power.
Have you been able to use the Midnight
Oil tour to do a bit of electioneering?
I am not confusing
the two things.
I am a full time person working
for a nuclear-free Australia
and I'll do that in
whatever way I can.
If it means being a senator,
then I will be a full-time senator.
Soon we realised
the kind of spin
that politicians and some
journalists would put on the situation,
but if they had done
their homework,
they would have realised that this was
a band that was talking political songs
from the very first one on
the first album, Powderworks,
was clearly on the same topic.
That is, you know, the
dangers of nukes and whatever.
'84, '85, we didn't suddenly
jump into another boat
and start swimming a
different way upstream.
Everybody expected
it to crash and burn,
and us not to be able to run
a campaign at the same time.
And then once the
public opinion poll
showed that people
were supportive,
then, ah, they started to take
it a little bit more seriously,
but we were under
attack the whole time.
I think it's possible
that Peter Garrett
will be elected as well as me.
Being a senator in the
balance of power situation
is a full time job,
believe you me,
and I would like to
see an under taking
from Peter Garrett here and now
that if he is elected
to the senate,
he will resign, he
will leave Midnight Oil
and he will drop
his previous career
and he will devote himself full
time to the job of being senator.
Now if he doesn't do that,
if he doesn't front the
people to that extent,
then I think he should
withdraw his nomination now.
Damn my hand and it is so sore.
Everything in the world could
be going wrong, you know.
I mean your lead singer
could be going into politics,
but you would have
this thing, you know,
where it was your thing
and you really loved it,
and I still love playing
with Rob and Martin.
Once we all get in a room,
it is just this
thing that starts
and it is just like
a beautiful thing,
because we just love the
feeling of playing together.
It is a very special thing.
It's... it's...
it's like family.
Just feels like family to me.
I was well supported by the band
and well supported by my
wife and family and my mates.
You know, it meant
such a great deal to me
to know that people
were supporting
what we were doing
and what I was doing.
I just had to get myself there.
You know, I had to
get on to that stage
and, uh, on some nights
after a long days campaigning
it was actually
quite fun, you know,
because it was such a relief,
and the energy of the crowd
and the band was fantastic.
In a more exciting election,
Garrett and his colleagues
could have got lost in the wash.
Instead, they
could create history
and a generation
removed from politics
looks set to be reawakened.
There is a 10,
there is a nine,
there is an eight,
there is a seven.
Six,
five,
four,
three, two, one.
Across town, Mr. Hawke chose
to vote at Coburg State
School in his electorate of Wills.
But even in Hawke territory,
there was the Nuclear
Disarmament Party.
The Nuclear Disarmament Party was
polling something like 7.7% of the vote.
So that is some
sort of a pointer
to what we might expect
to see in the senate later on.
Yes, when the campaigning began
some members
of the Liberal Party
believed that they
had an outside chance
of gaining a senate majority
but that hope seems to
have evaporated somewhat
with the arrival on
the scene of the NDP.
The NDP was formed
five months ago
and still appears as a loose
coalition of anti-nuclear groups
who've consistently demonstrated
against the mining of uranium
and the existence of foreign
defence bases in Australia.
Certainly the government was
worried enough during the campaign
about the slip of
support to the NDP
to push a strong line that
a vote for Garrett or Meltzer
was a wasted vote.
Let's cross over now to
Geraldine and our politicians panel.
I am going to ask
Senator Gareth Evans
whom I know has been
watching the senate poll
obviously with
great interest indeed
whether you really do
think that Peter Garrett
can score as we have been
assessing here in the panel
an extraordinary
number of primary votes
to actually get up?
Well, its certainly looking
that way, Geraldine.
Again we haven't
seen any senate figures
come up but on
the opinion polls...
I was announced at one stage
as having won the seat.
Channel Ten announced
we had won the seat.
The decision-making process
took such a long time,
uh, in which there
were various moments
where we thought
maybe he would get in
and other times where we went,
"No, he probably won't get in."
That in the end it
didn't really matter.
We were prepared
for both outcomes.
And it was an
interesting feeling,
because we didn't
really know the result
until the New Year.
And people, things
started to go back to normal.
We are in Australia.
Weve had an election.
Let's get on with life.
We sing a song for Christmas.
Um, what's that?
Oh, I have got it.
Santa voted for the
NDP, did he? Okay.
There was a little bit of unease
about well what
is next, you know?
What is going to be the outcome?
You know, if Pete gets in.
You see the band was
prepared to lose everything.
They were as one
in terms of the issue.
I mean my view was I
wouldn't stop making music.
Um, but I wasn't quite
sure how I'd keep making it.
Life isn't all
depressing in politics.
There are times when
you have just got to dance.
And when we
came to the election,
the Liberal Party gave their
preferences to the Labor Party,
and the Labor Party gave
their preferences to the Liberals
as a way of keeping Pete
and the Nuclear Disarmament
Party out of power.
And then, at the end
of it I remember going,
"How did he end up losing it?"
But there was also
a feeling of relief,
and I am really, you
know, sorry for Pete
but the other side of me,
the music fan side of me
was like, "Phew," you know.
Good, we can continue on.
That was Petes first venture
into the sort of
political arena.
I think he was glad
that he didn't win it,
and we were all pretty
relieved when he failed.
He didn't actually fail
but as far as to
get the seat, yeah.
Pete didn't really
want to be a senator.
You know, the issue was the
most important thing for him.
He really wanted to see
the issue on the front pages,
which we achieved fantastically.
Um, I think it would
have been terrible
if he had gone to
Canberra as a senator.
Um, but I think what he did
by having a
red-hot go at it, um,
was achieve exactly
what he and everyone else
in the nuclear disarmament
movement really wanted,
which was to make
the issue addressed
and taken more seriously.
Like the Pied Piper,
Mr. Hawke led the children into a
Parliament House committee room.
There was undoubtedly
one common thread
running through the questions.
Why do you continue
mining uranium
when we know it is
used for nuclear bombs?
If there was a nuclear war what
would happen to Australia itself?
Would you have a
nuclear fallout shelter?
Mr. Hawke, you sell
uranium overseas,
so how can you be
sure that it will be used
in a manner that you
want it to be used?
Mr. Hawke told them
about nuclear safe guards
and about Australia's efforts
on nuclear disarmament.
Mr. Hawke had his problems
when he arrived for talks with
Secretary of State George Schultz,
cooperate with the
testing of the MX Missile
and be damned by his own party
or refuse and face criticism
for letting down a major ally.
A decision has
been made by the US
to conduct the MX test
without the use of Australian
support arrangements.
We as a government,
the people of Australia
have played a part
uh, in the maintenance
of systems to ensure
a world which, uh,
is not threatened
with the nuclear holocaust.
The Prime Minister said Australia's
cooperation with the United States
did not entail endorsement
of the controversial
Star Wars weapons system.
He asked for and
received an assurance
that the joint facilities in
Australia would not be used
for anti satellite systems.
And we are sort of coming
up into you know 1988.
We have just come
out of the 1970s
with the referendum for giving
Aboriginals the right to vote
and so you have got this sort
of book ending kind of period
where the Oils emerge
and out of that came
this kind of music dynamic
between the whole
western desert and top end.
I think it gave a
bigger perspective
to what the band was doing.
Experiencing what so many people
in Australia will never
experience first-hand.
That song opened
up a whole new way
of approaching our sound,
and we gradually started
to write songs with space.
Started to see the
band in a different light.
I can still remember a
night at the Zenith in France.
They started Beds Are Burning,
which has got a very
distinctive beginning.
The French audience just
took over Beds Are Burning
and sang the whole song.
The band stopped singing.
But it was word
perfect. It was clear.
The clarity was perfect,
and you couldn't
help but be moved.
I can still remember
the feeling.
I get a little bit tingly
now thinking about it.
Just the memories of
them jumping up and down
singing the words
about Australia
written by Australians.
It was a proud moment.
Well, when the band
finished it was a bit of a shock.
It was a struggle in some
ways to adjust to the real world
because I think being
in the band it is like,
a bit like adolescence
or childhood.
When the band ends, that is
when you actually have to grow up.
Because people are
telling you where to go
and they are giving
you the passports
and they are giving
you the food, the hotel,
but after that ends
you have to kind of
figure it out for yourself,
and, um, you know, I
have actually enjoyed...
I enjoyed the band, but I
enjoyed not having the band, too.
For me at least
there was a sense
that we would
go round in circles
if at least I didn't break
out and do something else,
and I think everybody had thought
about it at one point or another,
but I was the one that went.
I understood the
need for breaks,
because I think that was
actually why we survived
for all that time was we did
take breaks from each other.
So why not take a longer break.
You know, why do we have to
call, quit, the whole thing quits.
So I didn't get it.
Because I, um,
I didn't feel that
the band was ready
to say goodbye to anyone.
Including each other.
Thanks very much everybody.
It is time for us
to say good night.
Be good to one another and
take it easy on the way home.
We will see you in some disguise
in 1985.