Midnight Oil Burns For The First Time In 20 Years

Midnight Oil, the Australian rock band that captured global charts with their hit "Beds Are Burning" in 1987, are planning on hitting the road starting in mid-April.

Frontman Peter Garrett, an Australian government minister from 2007 to 2013, said that plans to start touring again will work on trying to reach their "true fans" by issuing only paper tickets. The announcement of the tour marks the first time since 2002 that Midnight Oil has hit the stage.

Garrett noted that the band was hoping to help their fans access their live music at a fair price, rather than being hosed by a scalper.

"Scalping has become a monumental rip-off," Garrett noted in comments to The Herald Sun. "It's urgent that we rein in low-life companies and individuals profiteering from music lovers by this disgusting practice."

The band is hoping to prevent situations such as that which happened with ticket sales for Ed Sheeran, where $125 tickets were sold for $1,600.

The original lineup of Garrett, Jim Moginie, Rob Hirst, Martin Rotsey and Bones Hillman will be kicking off their tour in an intimate Sydney pub in April of this year, and then will be heading to North America for a series of dates before returning to Australia for 18 dates before they wrap their tour with a November 11 concert in Sydney's Domain, supported by the John Butler Trio and A.B. Original.

"Beds Are Burning" was a protest song in support of giving native Australian lands back to the Pintupi, who were among the very last people to come in from the desert. These 'last contact' people began moving from the Gibson Desert to settlements and missions in the 1930s. More were forcibly moved during the 1950s and 1960s to the Papunya settlement.