Midnight Oil, The Domain, Sydney, 19th November 2017

Midnight Oil’s “The Great Circle 2017” World Tour saw the group’s classic line-up literally circle around our overheating planet for 6 months, starting and ending with gigs in Sydney. Appropriately for a band forged in their hometown’s sweat-drenched beer barns, the tour began in mid-April with an intimate local pub gig at Marrickville Bowls. Midnight Oil then honed their live show with over 30 gigs around the world during the northern summer, playing iconic venues from Sao Paulo’s Espaço das Americas and the Wiltern in L.A. to London’s Hammersmith Apollo and The Olympia in Paris. They shared festival stages with artists like Arcade Fire, Sting and The Pixies and finally return to New Zealand after 20 years.

This long-awaited World Tour climaxede with 18 special homecoming concerts through October and November, 2017. Given the band’s deep connections with central Australia the local leg kicked off in Alice Springs and Darwin before starting to circle their homeland with a show in the rainforest near Cairns. Over the following five weeks the tour looped clockwise around the country in mainly outdoor venues including Hope Estate in the Hunter Valley, Victoria’s Hanging Rock and Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Brisbane’s Riverstage and the Village Green beside Adelaide Oval before “The Great Circle” finally came to a close right back where it all began; with a final show in Sydney on November 17 at that traditional home of Australian political activism, The Domain.